Suppression and hypothesis testing: does suppressing stereotypes during interactions help to avoid confirmation biases?

Recent work indicates that trying not to think in stereotypical terms increases the accessibility of stereotypical information, which paradoxically results in more stereotypical judgments. The present study translated the colour-blindness ideology in general and stereotype suppression research in particular into an hypothesis testing setting. Participants who were asked to suppress their stereotypes when selecting a set of questions were indeed less guided by ambient stereotypes than control participants, thereby showing a reduction of the classical confirmation orientation in question preferences. Still, compared to control participants, suppressors also later reported more polarized impressions such that consistent targets were seen as more stereotypical and inconsistent ones as more counter-stereotypical. Moreover, group evaluations were more stereotypical for suppressors than for controls indicating that suppression had led to stronger activation of the stereotypical representation. Results are discussed in light of the prevailing belief regarding the benefits of political correctness and colour-blindness. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Social perceivers often interact with people about whom they do not know much. In such situations, preconceptions help partners getting acquainted because they provide useful information for dealing with the immediate interaction. For example, given current beliefs about the likely personalities of, respectively, hairdressers and engineers, people will probably not choose the same topics of discussion when interacting with a member of one or the other group. Clearly thus, people try their best to behave Received 9 December 2001 Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 6 May 2003 *Correspondence to: Dr M. Dumont, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Louvain, 10 Place du Cardinal Mercier, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected] Contract/grant sponsor: Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research. in a socially adapted way and choose the right thing to say and do when interacting with another person. Clearly, stereotypes provide the kind of tools people can rely upon to achieve these goals (Fiske, 2000; Leyens, Yzerbyt, & Schadron, 1994; Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000). Research however has shown that the use of stereotypes as hypotheses guiding the interaction commonly leads to confirm the preconceptions about the target (Snyder & Stukas, 1999). Still, because of social or personal norms and pressures, people may also wish to keep away from stereotypes. This is especially true in today’s so-called politically correct or colour-blind context (Wolsko, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2000). When this is the case, any reference to stereotypes is likely to be avoided during the interaction so as to make sure that one is not being prejudiced toward the target. The present research examines how attempts at suppressing stereotypes may operate during social interactions and whether this strategy indeed helps avoiding the confirmation of preconceptions.