Social norms and prejudice: the impact of egalitarianism and competition on the automatic prejudice against blacks

The present studies examined the effects of social norms on the automatic prejudice against Black people. Study 1 assessed the effects of egalitarianism and competitive meritocracy on automatic racial prejudice. The results showed that the competitive meritocracy context increases prejudice. But, the egalitarian context didn't reduce the prejudice. Study 2 investigated the meanings that people assign to "equality". A content analysis denoted two main social representations: equality in the law (Rights and Duties) and equality as solidarity in relationships (fraternity, respect to differences, solidarity, etc.). We named the first representation of equality as "Formal Egalitarianism" and the second as "Solidarity Egalitarianism". Those two forms of equality were used as priming in the third study, together with the competitive meritocracy norm. Results indicated that the competitive meritocracy context increased prejudiced responses. However, the solidarity egalitarianism context controlled the automatic prejudice against Blacks. Formal egalitarianism has no effect on the control of prejudice. These results support the hypothesis concerning the impact of social normative contexts on prejudice activation.