Abstract
This study examined the inhibitive effect of punishment on activation of female stereotypes. Fifty male undergraduate and graduate students were randomly assigned to two conditions ; punishment condition and control condition. In the punishment condition, aversive sound was inflicted as punishment when negative female stereotypical associations were presented, whereas in the control condition, the sound was given when non-female stereotypical associations were presented. The activation of female stereotypes was measured with a semantic priming paradigm. The results indicated that the negative female stereotypes were activated in the control condition, but this activation was less acute in the punishment condition. These effects of punishment were not modified by participants' explicit attitude toward women. The mechanisms governing the inhibitive effect of punishment on stereotype activation, and the role of valence of stereotypes in the activation were discussed.
