Attitude–goal correspondence and interracial interaction: Implications for executive function and impression formation

• We examined the consequences of emotion regulation during interracial interaction.
• Mismatch in implicit attitudes and expressive goals predicted cognitive depletion.
• Attitude–regulatory goal mismatch also predicted more negative interracial judgments.
• This pattern of effects was found for both high and low-prejudiced Whites.

The present research examined whether mismatches in implicit racial attitudes and regulatory goals may contribute to well-documented cognitive depletion effects after interracial interactions. Consistent with a mismatch account of regulatory demands, both high and low implicitly-biased Whites showed evidence of cognitive depletion after interacting with a Black confederate, but as a function of oppositely-valenced emotion regulation prompts: Whereas high implicitly-biased Whites showed impaired subsequent performance on a Stroop task when instructed to suppress negative (but not positive) emotional expressions during an interracial interaction, low implicitly-biased Whites showed the opposite pattern. Additionally, attitude–regulatory goal mismatch was associated with more negative impressions of a Black confederate, independent of observers' impressions of the confederate. Implications of attitude–goal correspondence for intergroup interaction and the maintenance of intergroup bias are considered.