Ss reported their standards for how they should respond and how they would respond in contact situations with Black people (Study 1) and homosexual men (Study 2). Interest centered on the affective consequences associated with should-would discrepancies. Low and moderately prejudiced Ss with discrepancies reacted with feelings of global discomfort and with more specific feelings of compunction (guilt and self-criticism). High prejudiced Ss with discrepancies experienced only global discomfort. Study 3 data indicated that low prejudiced Ss internalized their nonprejudiced standards and felt obligated to respond consistently with them. High prejudiced Ss' personal standards were less well internalized and appeared to be derived from their perceptions of society's standards, which Ss indicated were mixed (i.e., contained both egalitarian and discriminatory components). Implications for prejudice reduction and contemporary models of prejudice are discussed.Many Southerners have confessed to me, for instance, that even though in their minds they no longer feel prejudice toward Blacks, they still feel squeamish when they shake hands with a Black. These feelings are left over from what they learned in their families as children. (Pettigrew, 1987, p. 20) Defeated intellectually, prejudice lingers emotionally. (Allport, 1954, p. 328) Pettigrew's and AUport's observations suggest that conscious decisions to renounce prejudice do not immediately eliminate prejudiced responses. Overcoming a lifetime of socialization experiences that, unfortunately, promote prejudice (Devine, 1989; Dovidio & Gaertner, in press;Ehrlich, 1973;P. A. Katz, 1976) is an arduous task. Thus, efforts to defeat prejudice are likely to involve a great deal of internal conflict between consciously endorsed nonprejudiced beliefs and lingering stereotypic thoughts and feelings.The coexistence of these contradictory reactions (i.e., nonprejudiced beliefs and negative responses) has often been regarded with suspicion in the prejudice literature. Of central concern is that many people who report nonprejudiced attitudes on surveys also manifest prejudice on nonconsciously monitored measures (Crosby, Bromley, & Saxe, 1980;Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). Several theorists have resolved the conflict by assuming that verbal reports are not trustworthy indicators of These studies were supported in part by a grant from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School. We gratefully acknowledge Valerie

This research examined individual differences in attitude importance (J. A. Krosnick, 1988a) as a moderator of resistance to persuasion. In 2 studies, individuals who favored allowing gay people to serve openly in the military were aurally presented with a counterattitudinal message. Participants who considered their attitude high (vs. low) in personal importance were more resistant to the message. Process analyses revealed that both thought listings and self-reported affect mediated this attitude importance effect. A 2nd study, which also examined message quality, showed that both highand low-importance individuals were more resistant to a weak (vs. strong) message. This effect was explained by the fact that the weak (vs. strong) message engendered more irritation and negative affective elaborations. Results highlight the role of attitude importance in motivating resistance to persuasive communications and reveal that the resistance process is both cognitive and affective. Implications for contemporary models of persuasion are discussed.In our daily lives we are struck not by the ease of producing attitude change but by the rarity of it. (Miller, 1965, p. 121) Persuasion attempts pervade the fabric of social life: Everyday, TVs and radios shout at people to buy beauty and purchase prestige; newspapers tell people what to think and what to think about; friends and colleagues argue their angle and push their points. Not surprisingly, then, social psychologists have focused on the factors and processes that contribute to effective persuasion. That is, despite the observation that attitude change is difficult to produce (or, perhaps more accurately, because of it), the primary interest of the field has been on the ways and means of effective persuasion. This emphasis has led to the relative neglect of an important and perhaps even more prevalent phenomenon in the realm of persuasion dynamics: resistance to attitude change.Although it is a widely shared assumption that some attitudes (strong ones) are highly resistant to change (e.g., Abelson,

Personal standards for responding toward gay males and affective reactions to discrepancies were examined for low prejudiced (LP) and high prejudiced (HP) Ss in 2 studies. These standards and discrepancies involved responses varying in controllability and acceptability. Results indicated that LP Ss experienced negative self-directed affect in connection with transgressions from their nonprejudiced and well-internalized standards, regardless of the type of response. HP Ss' personal standards were quite nonprejudiced and well internalized for relatively controllable and unacceptable prejudiced responses. Nevertheless, HP Ss' transgressions from their standards produced negative affect directed toward others but not toward the self, regardless of the type of response. The findings supported Higgins's (1987) argument that the standpoint of standards determines affective reactions to discrepancies. Apparently, LP Ss' standards are based on the own standpoint, but HP Ss' standards are based on the other standpoint. 198 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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