Stereotyping

In the most recent years with the significant advances in the field of social psychology is the study of unconscious and automatic process in human thought and behavior. One of the earliest research experiments in the social cognition field was an approach demonstrated by Bartlett (1932), where his experiments were performed by British undergraduates which measured their ability to recall a Native American folk tale. The experiment results indicated the participants sometimes misremembered and when they did the misremembering was due to a pre-existing belief. Our previous knowledge and assumptions can shape our memories, evaluations and impressions of others.
Stereotypes are based upon sociocultural knowledge, but are inaccurate because groups are not similar on all traits. Due to pre-existing knowledge and assumptions promote cognitive efficiency. There is less cognitive effort to stereotype than to process unique cases. Early research on stereotyping, suggest that aspects of person perception, such as stereotyping, occur

In Blair and Banaji (1996) Experiments 3 and 4, they were able to reverse stereotyping under certain conditions. Those experiments demonstrated that stereotype priming can be eliminated when perceivers have an intention to process counterstereotypic information and sufficient cognitive resources available. In these studies, participants displayed a complete reversal of stereotype priming, producing faster responding on counterstereotypic trails than on stereotypic trials. In order to effectively reverse stereotyping there would need to be a long delay between prime and target stimulus. For instance, in Mosowitz et al. (1999) stereotyping was avoided by showing people they could avoid race and sex based stereotyping due to a chronic and automatic goal of