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Stereotype activation is unintentional: Behavioural and event‐related potenials evidence
Author(s) -
Wang Pei,
Yang YaPing,
Tan ChenHao,
Zhao XiangXia,
Liu YongHe,
Lin ChongDe
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1002/ijop.12135
Subject(s) - n400 , priming (agriculture) , psychology , stroop effect , stereotype (uml) , event related potential , cognitive psychology , event (particle physics) , negative priming , social psychology , cognition , neuroscience , selective attention , botany , germination , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
In this study, a priming Stroop paradigm was used to determine whether stereotype activation is unintentional. Priming conditions (priming/no‐priming) and the relationship between priming and target (consistent/inconsistent/no‐relation) were the independent variables; accuracy, reaction time and N400 amplitude were used as dependent variables. The reaction time revealed that stereotype activation is, to some extent, unintentional. Furthermore, the event‐related potenial ( ERP ) results showed that N400 amplitude was larger for inconsistent conditions than for consistent conditions. This result supported the notion that stereotype activation is an unintentional and automatic process.