Taking the watchdog off its leash: personal prejudices and situational motivations jointly predict derogation of a stigmatized source

Lower- and higher-prejudiced individuals may strategically derogate negatively stereotyped individuals. Regardless of degree of prejudice, participants with a directional goal to discredit a threatening message and its source were more likely to do so when the source belonged to a negatively stereotyped group. They also were less persuaded by that stigmatized source. When this directional goal was negated by making the message nonthreatening, lower-prejudiced individuals evaluated the stigmatized and nonstigmatized sources, and their messages, similarly and were equally persuaded by both sources. When an accuracy goal was simultaneously introduced, lower-prejudice participants again rated the stigmatized and nonstigmatized sources comparably yet continued to derogate the stigmatized speaker's message and were less persuaded by him. Removing the directional goal or adding the accuracy goal did not affect higher-prejudiced participants' evaluations. The importance of examining situational goals and individual differences when studying biased responding is discussed.