Intersections: Addressing attitudes toward race, gender role and motivation to respond without prejudice

Fifty years after the Civil Rights movements in the United States, inequality still exists even as we live in a society that decries discrimination. Prejudice research has shed light on this discrepancy. Researchers have identified common unconscious cognitive processes that underlie prejudice. They have demonstrated the continued presence of prejudice even though surveys of attitudes indicate decreasing levels of prejudice in the United States. To explain this, researchers have identified ways that individuals can modify their original prejudiced reactions so that they can respond with less prejudice.;Results indicated that unconscious racism and sexism are still present. They show that these racism and sexism will be expressed unless motivation to respond without the corresponding prejudice and the cognitive resources necessary to influence the unconscious processes are utilized. The greatest influencing factor was internal motivation to respond without prejudice. However, although results indicate that many participants were motivated to respond without prejudice, some aspects of prejudice were still reported. The most acknowledged prejudice was benevolent sexism. Further, there was a positive correlation between benevolent and hostile sexism, which supports the theory of the complementary nature of these two aspects of sexism. The evidences of ambivalence in attitudes and the unconscious nature of prejudice provide further insight into the pervasiveness of prejudice.;This study assesses attitudes towards White women and Black women (racism) who conform to or defy the White Judeo-Christian majority culture's proscribed traditional gender roles (sexism). The interaction between racist and sexist attitudes was explored. An implicit priming measure of prejudice was utilized to assess unconscious racism and sexism. Self-report measures of pro-Black and anti-Black attitudes, benevolent and hostile sexist attitudes, and ambivalent attitudes were utilized to assess expressions of prejudice. Internal and external sources of motivation to respond without racism and sexism were also assessed.