Still another look at the effects of fit and novelty on the salience of social categories

We respond to Oakes′ contention that data reported in Biernat and Vescio (1993) are more consistent with her perspective on category salience than with that of Taylor and Fiske. In a reexamination of our findings regarding trait-based evaluations of Black and White targets, we continue to find evidence of evaluative extremity toward Black targets in solo rather than balanced conditions, as predicted by Taylor and Fiske. We do acknowledge that our memory data are quite consistent with Oakes′ perspective; however, these data do not provide a critical test between the two models for these models make the same memory error predictions. We suggest means of integrating the two perspectives by emphasizing their shared interest in the social meaning of categories.