PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN Kawakami et al. / SOCIAL CATEGORIES AND AUTOMATIC BEHAVIOR Automatic Stereotyping: Category, Trait, and Behavioral Activations

tions include a variety of associations and not simply trait infor-mation, two studies investigated whether the automatic activa-tion of stereotypic traits following category priming is a necessary mediator of automatic social behavior. The results across both studies demonstrated an automatic behavior effect; participants primed with the elderly responded more slowly to general lexical decisions than participants not primed with the elderly. The results also provide evidence for automatic stereotypic trait acti-vation; participants primed with the elderly responded faster to stereotypic than nonstereotypic traits. Moreover, consistent with the view that stereotypes are multicomponential, category prim-ing predicted automatic social behavior in ways independent of mediation-by-trait activation. Stereotypes are characteristics that are associated with members of social categories (Kunda, 1999; Stangor & Lange, 1994). Although they are typically portrayed as cognitive structures consisting of personality traits, ste-reotypes also represent physical characteristics, expecta-tions, attitudes, and feelings about social group