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.