“…Specifically, primes facilitate the processing of stereotype-consistent compared with stereotype-inconsistent stimuli ( Banaji & Hardin, 1996 ; Blair & Banaji, 1996 ; Devine, 1989 ; Dovidio et al, 1986 ; Kawakami & Dovidio, 2001 ; Macrae & Cloutier, 2009 ; Macrae & Martin, 2007 ; Perdue & Gurtman, 1990 ). Critically, however, many of the studies that purport to demonstrate the automaticity of stereotype activation have used response-priming tasks in which the origins of priming potentially reside in response-related processes (e.g., Blair & Banaji, 1996 ; Kawakami et al, 2000 ; Macrae et al, 2002 ; Macrae & Cloutier, 2009 ; Macrae & Martin, 2007 ). Substantiating this concern, in a response-priming task, here we demonstrated that stereotype-based priming was underpinned by a response bias and not the enhanced processing of stereotype-related material.…”