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In two experiments, we investigated the relationships among stereotype strength, processing capacity, and the allocation of attention to stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information describing a target person. The results of both experiments showed that, with full capacity, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward stereotype-consistent versus stereotype-inconsistent information. However, when capacity was diminished, greater stereotype strength was associated with increased attention toward inconsistent versus consistent information. Thus, strong stereotypes may act as self-confirming filters when processing capacity is plentiful, but as efficient information gathering devices that maximize the acquisition of novel (disconfirming) information when capacity is depleted. Implications for models of stereotyping and stereotype change are discussed.

Stereotype formation may be based on the exaggeration of real group differences (category accentuation) or the misperception of group differences that do not exist (illusory correlation). This research sought to account for both phenomena with J. K. Kruschke's (1996, 2001, 2003) attention theory of category learning. According to the model, the features of majority groups are learned earlier than the features of minority groups. In turn, the features that become associated with a minority are those that most distinguish it from the majority. This second process is driven by an attention-shifting mechanism that directs attention toward group-attribute pairings that facilitate differentiation of the two groups and may lead to the formation of stronger minority stereotypes. Five experiments supported this model as a common account for category accentuation and distinctiveness-based illusory correlation. Implications for the natures of stereotype formation, illusory correlation, and impression formation are discussed.

Three experiments examined the relationship between prejudice and processing of stereotypic information. Higher levels of prejudice were associated with greater attention to and more thorough encoding of stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent behaviors but only when processing capacity was plentiful (Experiments 1 and 3). High-prejudice participants attributed consistent behaviors to internal factors and inconsistent behaviors to external forces (Experiment 2). Together, these results suggest that high-prejudice people attend carefully to inconsistent behaviors to explain them away but only if they have sufficient resources to do so. Results also showed that low-prejudice but not high-prejudice participants formed individuated impressions by integrating the implications of the target's behaviors (i.e., individuating). High levels of prejudice appear to be associated with biased encoding and judgment processes that may serve to maintain stereotypes.

The authors argue that implicit measures of social cognition do not reflect only automatic processes but rather the joint contributions of multiple, qualitatively different processes. The quadruple process model proposed and tested in the present article quantitatively disentangles the influences of 4 distinct processes on implicit task performance: the likelihood that automatic bias is activated by a stimulus; that a correct response can be determined; that automatic bias is overcome; and that, in the absence of other information, a guessing bias drives responses. The stochastic and construct validity of the model is confirmed in 5 studies. The model is shown to provide a more nuanced and detailed understanding of the interplay of multiple processes in implicit task performance, including implicit measures of attitudes, prejudice, and stereotyping.

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that judgments about a group formed by two paired categories would rely on stored instances of individual category members (i.e., exemplars) in some cases, but not in others. Specifically, judgments of a relatively unfamiliar compound category (e.g., male elementary schoolteachers) were expected to rely on exemplars, whereas alternative sources of information, particularly abstract stereotypes, would be available for making judgments of a more familiar category (e.g., female elementary schoolteachers). Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated support for these hypotheses. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that the differences in judgment strategy between the familiar and unfamiliar compound categories arose from the relative incompatibility of the two constituent categories (e.g., males and elementary schoolteachers), rather than familiarity. Implications for stereotype development and change are discussed.