Affective Reactions to Prejudice-Related Discrepant Responses the Impact of Standard Salience

Affective reactions to prejudice-related discrepant responses were examined either before (standard-salient condition) or after (standard-not-salient condition) subjects' personal standards for responding were made salient. The standard-salience manipulation had little influence on discrepancy-associated discomfort. However, discrepancy-associated guilt was significantly attenuated in the standard-not-salient condition. Correlations within prejudice levels revealed that, even among low-prejudiced subjects, the relation between guilt and discrepancies was quite weak in the standard-not-salient condition. This indicates that self-regulatory processes aimed at reducing prejudice may not be initiated on a regular basis. The results also revealed that the correlation between guilt and discrepancies was significant, although modest, among moderately prejudiced and high prejudiced subjects in the standard-salient condition. The implications of this finding are discussed.