A Multi-Site Collaborative Study of the Hostile Priming Effect

McCarthy, Randy, Gervais, Will, Aczel, Balazs, Al-Kire, Rosemary L., Aveyard, Mark, Marcella Baraldo, Silvia, Baruh, Lemi, Basch, Charlotte, Baumert, Anna, Behler, Anna, and others. (2021) A Multi-Site Collaborative Study of the Hostile Priming Effect. Collabra: Psychology, 7 (1). ISSN 2474-7394. (doi:10.1525/collabra.18738) (KAR id:92343)

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.18738

Abstract

In a now-classic study by Srull and Wyer (1979), people who were exposed to phrases with hostile content subsequently judged a man as being more hostile. And this “hostile priming effect” has had a significant influence on the field of social cognition over the subsequent decades. However, a recent multi-lab collaborative study (McCarthy et al., 2018) that closely followed the methods described by Srull and Wyer (1979) found a hostile priming effect that was nearly zero, which casts doubt on whether these methods reliably produce an effect. To address some limitations with McCarthy et al. (2018), the current multi-site collaborative study included data collected from 29 labs. Each lab conducted a close replication (total N = 2,123) and a conceptual replication (total N = 2,579) of Srull and Wyer’s methods. The hostile priming effect for both the close replication (d = 0.09, 95% CI [-0.04, 0.22], z = 1.34, p = .16) and the conceptual replication (d = 0.05, 95% CI [-0.04, 0.15], z = 1.15, p = .58) were not significantly different from zero and, if the true effects are non-zero, were smaller than what most labs could feasibly and routinely detect. Despite our best efforts to produce favorable conditions for the effect to emerge, we did not detect a hostile priming effect. We suggest that researchers should not invest more resources into trying to detect a hostile priming effect using methods like those described in Srull and Wyer (1979).

Item Type:	Article
DOI/Identification number:	10.1525/collabra.18738
Uncontrolled keywords:	hostile perceptions, social priming, social judgments, replication, hostile attributions, priming, crowdsourcing
Divisions:	Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Daniel Toribio Florez
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2021 09:41 UTC
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2022 15:29 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/92343 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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A Multi-Site Collaborative Study of the Hostile Priming Effect. (deposited 15 Dec 2021 09:39)
- A Multi-Site Collaborative Study of the Hostile Priming Effect. (deposited 15 Dec 2021 09:41) [Currently Displayed]

University of Kent Author Information

Toribio-Flórez, Daniel.

Creator's ORCID:	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9706-709X
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