Key Study: Formation of Stereotypes: Illusory Correlation: Hamilton & Gifford (1976)
Aim: To investigate illusory correlation based on group size as a key factor in the formation of stereotypes
Participants: 40 undergraduate students from a university in New York state, USA (20 males; 20 females)
Procedure:
- The participants were presented with two hypothetical groups i.e. these were not real groups consisting of real people with given characteristics
- The participants were told that Group A consisted of 26 members and that Group B consisted of 13 members
- The participants then read a series of statements which each described a particular behaviour performed by either a member of A or B e.g. John, a member of A, visited a friend in hospital
- The behaviours described in the statements were classified as either desirable or undesirable
- Both A and B were assigned more positive than negative behaviours at a ratio of 9:4 (positive to negative) and two thirds of the statements overall were attributed to members of A
- Thus, members of A were presented as performing more behaviours overall than B and positive behaviours were more frequent from both groups than negative behaviours
The participants were then asked to provide ratings for the following measures:
- Given a list of 20 attributes, assign each to either group A or B
- Given a particular example of a behaviour, say whether this behaviour was performed by a member of A or B
- Estimate how many negative behaviours can be attributed to either A or B
Results: The mean scores showed that participants attributed more desirable social behaviours (6.7) to members of Group A than to members of Group B (6.0); undesirable social behaviours were attributed more to Group B (5.6) than to Group A (4.4).
Conclusion: The results suggest that illusory correlation may be based on group size: the smaller group, B, appears more distinctive than the larger group A so that any undesirable behaviours are linked more often to the minority group, B, than to the majority group A. This has implications in terms of how minority groups are viewed by society.
Evaluation of Hamilton & Gifford (1976)
Strengths
- The study generated quantitative data, which is easy to compare and analyse, making the results reliable
- The findings could be used to inform awareness-raising as a means to reduce prejudice and increase tolerance of minority groups
Weaknesses
- The procedure does not fully reflect how people respond in real-life situations where they are exposed to minority groups which reduces ecological validity
- The small sample size reduces the statistical power of the data which means that the results lack robustness
Key terms:
- Illusory correlation
- Minority
- Majority