Reducing automatic stereotype activation: European- and African American photos in situational attribution training

Previous research has shown that training rooted in attribution theory, Situational Attribution Training (SAT), is effective in reducing automatic stereotyping. SAT reduces automatic stereotyping by asking participants to "consider the situation" when making attributional judgments of negative behaviors stereotypical of African Americans. The focus of the present research is to examine the repeated stereotype-consistent pairings of African American photos with the negative behaviors stereotypical of African Americans, seen during SAT, which may limit the maximum effectiveness of the training. As a methodological modification to the previous version of SAT, white participants were trained extensively to choose situational over dispositional explanations for negative behaviors stereotypical of African Americans paired with photos of both African- and European American men. By teaching participants to consider situational attributions for negative behaviors stereotypical of African Americans, paired with pictures of both African American and European American photos, I expected stronger stereotype reduction effects than has been previously shown. Participants who completed both Traditional SAT (all African American photos), and Diverse SAT (African- and European American photos), demonstrated reduced automatic racial stereotyping on a person categorization task, relative to participants that did not complete any training who exhibited substantial automatic stereotyping. However, the addition of European American photos did not increase the effectiveness of the traditional training paradigm. Implications for stereotype reduction are discussed.