Explain the distinction between how a prime might trigger schema-consistent behavior and how a prime might trigger a preparation to interact which a person from a particular group. How did Cesario, Plaks, and Higgins (2006) examine this experimentally?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer:
Cesario, et al., (2006) provided participants with photos of men that were labeled as "gay" or "straight" with an exposure of 11ms which is well below conscious awareness of the stimuli. During the exposure trials, the computers would malfunction and the program would instruct the participant to seek out the experimenter. The male experimenter then acted in a hostile manner and the experimenters measured whether the participants with negative attitudes toward gay men would respond in a more hostile manner than those who had seen only straight men or participants who had positive attitudes. Their findings suggest that being primed with "gay" labeled photos did not activate a stereotype of gay men as passive/non-aggressive but rather activated an expectation of interaction with a disliked group which led to more hostility toward a hostile experimenter. Thus primes may not only bring to mind stereotype content and valence, but if the prime is associated with individuals or groups may lead people to prepare to interact with those people. If the group is disliked, then this could lead to more hostile interactions, but it is also potentially the case that priming a liked group would lead to more favorable interactions.