- This study tested the generality of the idea that priming participants with a positive examplar of a minority group will reduce their implicit prejudice, as found by Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001). The subjects (N = 55) first read a short biographical profile of either an admired or a reviled African-American (Barack Obama, or the murderer Willie Horton, respectively), before being tested for implicit racial prejudice on the IAT, or Implicit Association Test. They were then switched to read the profile of the other exemplar, and were tested again on the IAT. Contrary to predictions, priming with the positive exemplar raised the subjects' Reaction Time to stimuli that were incongruent with prejudice, indicating an increase rather than a reduction in their implicit racial prejudice. This counterintuitive result was obtained in each of three groups, tested over three years. A possible interpretation for these seemingly discrepant findings is proposed in terms of the short-lived arousal of cognitive dissonance.
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