All the original materials necessary to replicate the study are available under "Materials". All the data files that were used in the reported analyses and are necessary to reproduce the results are available under "Data". Abstract We examined stereotyping and its effect on self-regulation in preparation for inter-ideological interactions. Turkish conservative and liberal students anticipated interacting with a political outgroup (vs. ingroup) member and the accessibility of outgroup and ingroup stereotypes was measured. Conservatives in both outgroup and ingroup interaction conditions showed higher accessibility for outgroup stereotypes. Liberals, however, showed lower accessibility for both outgroup and ingroup stereotypes in both conditions. Liberals’ suppression of stereotypes about the anticipated partner led to worse self-regulation when the anticipated partner was conservative but better self-regulation when the partner was liberal. Conservatives’ stereotype accessibility did not affect their self-regulation. These findings show that liberals may tend to rely on self-regulatory resources to suppress their stereotypes while anticipating inter-ideological interactions while conservatives rely on stereotypes to navigate such interactions.