Robin:
False consensus effect (FCE) is quick and easy. On
the front sheet of a piece of paper ask a class to estimate the % of other
college students who smoke/ski/drive recklessly/ etecetea. Then have them turn
the paper over and indicate whether THEY smoke/ski/drive reecklessly/ etcetera.
Taking smoking as an example, you should find that smokers believe there are
more smokers in the college population than non-smokers. I've done this in
classes and quickly tallied a dozen or data points. The traditional FCE
explanations: (a) people want to think others are like them so we project out
traits onto others (b) people who smoke (or ski) either SEE more people like
themselves, or, pay more attention to them because they are similar to us.
(footnote for a tangent) not related to teaching)
Classic references include
Krueger,
J. & Clement, R.W. (1997). Estimates of social consensus by majorities and
minorities: the case for social projection. Personality and Social Psychology
Review, 1, 299-313. Ross,
L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The ‘false consensus effect’: An
egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301.
Marks,
G. & Miller, N. (1987). Ten years of research on the false-consensus effect:
an empirical and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 102,
72-90.
Hint: some behaviors will not work.
Asking about "drinking" creates a ceiling effect (manyh people will just say
100%) and you won't see a difference between the groups. Asking about marijuana
yields a big effect. So does asking about being overweight. Also, like a
regression to the mean, people avoid extreme predictions in the face of
uncertainty. If you ask about rare things, or very common things, estimates
regress inward for both groups. for instance, let's say 20% of college students
smoke. Estimates might center on (say) 40% for smokers and 35% for non-smokers.
*
footnote: It has been difficult separating these explanations because FCE
is "correlational research" - we don't have hard data on what people have been
exposed to. I published a FCE paper in PSPB in 2000 that tried to create an
experimental paradigm for FCE. It was far from perfect, though it created the
interesting situation that I predicted the FCE would disappear (estimates from
one group =estimates from the other group), which is the null hypothesis in
NHST. Story for another day ....
-----------------------------
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Director, Psychology Honors
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
-----------------------------
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Director, Psychology Honors
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
-----------------------------
From: Robin Abrahams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2006 11:09 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] Social psych in-class exercises?
I'm going to be teaching a section of experimental social psychology at my alma mater this fall. Can anyone recommend good in-class experimental exercises? I'm hoping to focus the class on social cognition. I'd like to start looking at person perception, then move on to prejudice and the methodological difficulties of studying it, then move into what I like to call "human interaction with interactive non-humans"--how we relate to animals, media, and technology.
Thoughts? References? Anyone?
Thanks in advance--
Robin
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