The Recall of Stereotypes: The Effects of Incidentally Activated Directed Forgetting Instructions

Abstract

Abstract. Based on the automotive model (J. A. Bargh, 1990 ; Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998 ) and the directed forgetting paradigm, the present study investigated whether incidentally activated forget and remember cues can lead to similar effects as explicitly given instructions. To this end, the present paper attempted to replicate the findings of Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, and Ford (1997 ) employing their category primes (child abuser, neutral), study lists (List 1, List 2), and procedure. Using explicit directed forgetting instructions, Experiment 1 showed that the recall of the stereotypically relevant words (List 1) was higher when participants were given a remember than a forget instruction. This effect was found regardless of the prime conditions. Similarly, Experiment 2 showed that participants in the child abuser and neutral prime conditions recalled more stereotypically relevant words (List 1) when they were implicitly cued to remember than to forget these words. Experiment 3 showed that cognitively busy participants in the child-abuser, but not in the neutral prime condition, recalled more to-be-forgotten stereotypical words than nonbusy participants. These results are consistent with Macrae et al.’s findings, and show that the effects of directed forgetting instructions are similar regardless of whether they were given explicitly or were activated incidentally. Results are discussed in relation to stereotype maintenance.