Hamilton & Gifford (1976)

• What was the aim?

  To see if people associate negative statements to the minority group by making an illusory correlation.
• participants

  70 American undergraduates (35 males, 35 females)
• what were participants shown

  a series of slides, each with a statement about a member of one of two groups - simply called group A and B.
• hoe many members were in group A and B

  twice as many people in group A (26) as group B (13),
• which group was the minority group

  B as it had less people
• what were the participants told before the experiment

  that group B was smaller than Group A
• what did the participants see

  read a series of statements which each described a particular behaviour performed by either a member of A or B
• what was the nature of these statements


  bout one individual in one of the two groups; the statement was either positive or negative
• what did the participants have to do after the experiment

  asked to rank members of each group on a series of 20 traitsgiven a booklet in which they were given a statement and then asked whether the person who did this was from Group A or Group B. Finally, they were asked how many of the statements for each group had been "undesirable."
• what was the result in trait ratings

  On the trait ratings, group A was ranked higher than group B for positive traits and lower for negative trait
• what was the result of the booklet

  s correctly recalled more positive traits for group A (74%) than for group B (54%) and more negative traits for group B (65%) than for group A (55%)
• overall result

  Participants overestimated the number of negative traits in the minority group, but this finding was not significantly significant.
• what does this experiment tell you

  because the minority group was by nature smaller in number, their negative behaviours appeared more distinct and appear to be representative of the group.