People's automatic (unintentional, uncontrollable, and efficient) preference between social groups often determines their automatic preference between unknown individual members of these groups, a prominent example for automatic prejudice. What happens when the person making the judgment has long known the target individuals? Practice might automatize the deliberate judgment of the individuals. Then, if deliberate judgment is non-prejudiced, automatic prejudice might decrease. In 29 studies (total N = 4,907), we compared preferences between a famous member of a dominant social group and a famous member of a stigmatized social group on indirect measures of evaluation that were developed to measure automatic preference and on self-report measures. In most studies, we chose pairs based on prior self-reported preference for the member of the stigmatized group. The measures showed discrepancy, with indirect measures suggesting an automatic preference for the member of the dominant group. We replicated these results with various target individuals, two pairs of social groups (Black/White, Old/Young), two indirect measures, and in two countries (Studies 1-23). The indirectlymeasured pro-dominant preference was stronger when visual characteristics of the group were present rather than absent (Studies 24-25), suggesting a stronger effect of group characteristics on automatic than on deliberate preference between the individuals. On self-report and indirect measures, the preferences between individuals were related to the preferences between their groups (Studies 26-27), yet also to individuating information (Studies 28-29). Our results suggest that group evaluation plays a central role in the automatic evaluation of familiar (and not only novel) members of stigmatized groups.

People’s automatic preference for dominant groups over stigmatized groups often determines their automatic preference between unknown individual members of these groups, a prominent example for automatic prejudice. What happens when the person making the judgment has known the target individuals for quite some time? Practice might automatize the deliberate (non-prejudiced) judgment of the individuals, potentially eliminating automatic prejudice. In 27 studies (total N = 4,372), we compared automatic and deliberate preferences between a famous member of a dominant social group and a famous member of a stigmatized group. In most studies, we chose pairs based on prior self-reported preference for the member of the stigmatized group. Across all studies, automatic preference was discrepant from the deliberate preference, often favoring the member of the dominant group. We replicated these results with various target individuals, two pairs of social groups (Black/White, Old/Young), two automatic evaluation measures, and in two countries (Studies 1-23). Induced high salience of group membership increased the automatic preference for the member of the dominant group, but had no effect on deliberate preference (Studies 24-25). The automatic preference between the individuals was related more strongly to automatic than to deliberate group preference (Studies 26-27). Our results provide novel evidence for the prevalence of automatic prejudice and suggest that long familiarity with the members of a stigmatized group does not automatize the positive deliberate evaluation of these individuals, and does not dethrone group evaluation from its central role in the automatic evaluation of the individual.