Impressions at the intersection of ambiguous and obvious social categories: Does gay + black = likable?

How do perceivers combine information about perceptually obvious categories (e.g., Black) with information about perceptually ambiguous categories (e.g., gay) during impression formation? Given that gay stereotypes are activated automatically, we predicted that positive gay stereotypes confer evaluative bene fi ts to Black gay targets, even whenperceivers areunaware oftargets' sexual orientations. Participants in Study 1 rated faces of White straight men as more likable than White gay men, but rated Black men in the opposite manner: gays were liked more than straights. In Study 2, participants approaching Whites during an approach – avoidance task responded faster to straights than gays, whereas participants approaching Blacks responded faster to gays than straights. These fi ndings highlight the striking extent to which less visible categories, like sexual orientation, subtly in fl uence person perception and determine the explicit and implicit evaluations individuals form about others