Using OPL in Social Psychology
Maureen A. McCarthy, Kennesaw State University
Ken McGraw, Professor Emeritus at the University of Mississippi
In the previous article about the Online Psychology Laboratory (McCarthy, 2006)
we offered suggestions for the use of OPL to illustrate memory and perception. As part of
our series, this article will offer additional guidance for use of OPL to illustrate social
psychology principles. More specifically, OPL contains scientifically based activities to
illustrate the concept of stereotype. The First Impressions study offers an opportunity to
experience stereotype formation first hand.
Stereotype is a generalized belief about a certain group of people. Sometimes this
set of beliefs is overgeneralized, or applied to all people of a certain group, and the result
is prejudice and discrimination (Myers, 2005). Although many factors may contribute to
the development of stereotypes, one particularly interesting contributor was first
identified by David Hamilton and Robert Gifford (1976). It is based on a phenomenon
know as illusory correlation.
Illusory correlation occurs because of the differential salience of events. Some
events are simply more memorable than others. Memorability is particularly strong for
events that are rare, and when tow relatively rare events co-occur, they tend to be
remembered as con-occurring. That is, they tend to be remembered as correlated.
Examples include a memory of Friday the 13th on which something bad happened, or a
night of a full moon when someone went to the emergency room. The label illusory is
applied to these remembered correlations because the perceived correlation reflects only
one occurrence, not a strong correlation. That is, you are just as likely to experience a bad
day when the 13th falls on a Friday as on any other day, and emergency room visits are as
likely when the moon is full.
Hamilton and Gifford (1976) created the original First Impressions experiment to
illustrate role of illusory correlation in stereotype formation. It speaks to the issue of how
minority group members might come to be perceived more negatively than majority
group members when there is in fact no difference between them in the probability of
committing a negative act. The study at OPL, titled “First Impressions” is a version of the
Hamilton and Gifford experiment, one that was suggested by Jay Jackson (2000), who
developed an in-class activity patterned after the Hamilton and Gifford experiment.
In the first Impressions study, students are asked to read a series of statements
about 26 people identified as Alphas (the majority group) and 13 people identified as
Betas (the minority group). The statements report either something that is positive about
the person (e.g., Jon a member of the majority group, visited a sick friend in the hospital)
and something that is negative about the person (e.g., Tom, a member of the majority
group, cheated on an exam). The proportion of positive(.69) and negative (.31) statements
about Alphas and Betas is the same, which establishes the fact that – objectively- there is
no reason to believe that Betas, as a group, deserve to be viewed as any more likely to
engage in negative behaviors than Alphas, as a group. But the number of such statements
does differ because there are twice as many Alphas (n = 26) as Betas (n = 13). Therefore,
if people find rare events that co-occur to be more memorable than not-so-rare events, the
four instances when Beta group membership is combined with a negative act would
establish an illusory correlation that Betas are more strongly associated with a negative
act would establish an illusory correlation that Betas are more strongly associated with
negative acts than Alphas.
B participating in the First Impressions study, students can determine whether
they experience the illusory correlation phenomenon. The data will show whether the
minority Betas are judged more negatively than Alphas and whether students judge that
Betas are more strongly related to negative acts than Alphas. Recall that objectively there
is no difference. These data support a probability of .31 for negative behaviors for each
group. Although complete datasets can be downloaded for analysis, the data page for this
experiment has a button that will produce a quick graphical comparison of how the
strongly negative acts were perceived to be associated with Betas and Alphas,
respectively. Reasonably large datasets should show that Betas are falsely perceived as
more likely to behave negatively than Alphas.
References
Hamilton, D. L., & Gifford, R. K. (1976). Illusory correlation in interpersonal perception:
A cognitive basis of stereotypic judgments. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 12, 392-407.
Jackson, J. W. (2000). Demonstrating the concept of illusory correlation. Teaching of
Psychology, 27, 273-276.
McCarthy, M. A. (2006, Summer). Using OPL to illustrate concepts of memory.
Psychology Teacher Network, 16(2), 3, 19.
Myers, D. G. (2005). Exploring Psychology. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.