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).
Highlights
Randy McCarthy1 a, Will Gervais2, Balazs Aczel3, Rosemary L
Similar to McCarthy et al, the proposed study is a multi-site collaborative study. This proposed study contained both (a) close replications of Srull & Wyer (1979) that addresses the aspects of McCarthy et al.'s methods that departed from the original study and (b) conceptual replications where each contributing researcher developed and used stimuli that were unique to their individual data collection site
After data collection was complete, a researcher assistant aggregated the individual datasets for the close replications and for the conceptual replications
Summary
Randy McCarthy a, Will Gervais, Balazs Aczel, Rosemary L. The current study addressed several potential shortcomings of McCarthy et al (2018) and created conditions that would be most favorable to detecting a hostile priming effect using methods similar to those originally reported by Srull & Wyer (1979). This proposed study contained both (a) close replications of Srull & Wyer (1979) that addresses the aspects of McCarthy et al.'s methods that departed from the original study and (b) conceptual replications where each contributing researcher developed and used stimuli that were unique to their individual data collection site
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