P/PS/38. Is prejudice inevitable in dealing with cultural stereotypes?

The paper investigates the psychological aspects of prejudice arguing that culturally learned stereotypes are pre-consciously activated in subjects with both, high and low prejudice levels. Various approaches to stereotypes in psychological literature are reviewed (Devine; Bargh; Macrae, Milne and Bodenhausen; Lepore and Brown; Moscowitz, etc.). The author contends that changes in the perceivers social environment lead to changes in the stereotypes, and that implicit prejudice is not inevitable, but can be reduced by training.