Does watching the television show "24" induce anti-Arab prejudice?
Author(s):
Nicholas Holtzman, John Paul Schott, Laura Scherer, Michael Strube
Field:
Social
Name/description of effect:
Implicit Anti-Arab Prejudice, Induced by the Television Show "24"
Year(s) of attempted replication(s):
2007-2008
Number of experiments:
2
Replication status:
Still unclear
Sample size(s):
78, 253
Brief summary of experiment(s):
Study 1 (i.e., the study in which a novel effect was demonstrated). Participants watched the television show "24", or a control condition in which they watched the Tom Hanks movie Castaway. Participants took a pre-test and a post-test Implicit Association Test (Headers: Good, Bad, Arab, Other People). The 2 (pre vs. post) X 2 ("24" vs. "Castaway") ANOVA was significant, indicating that indeed "24" led to more implicit prejudice against Arabs.
Study 2 (i.e., the failure to replicate). In a similar study--the aim of which was to determine whether watching violence alone had an effect on implicit prejudice toward Arabs--participants watched one of four movies: A control video involving no violence and no Arab-Muslims; a video involving violence but no Arab-Muslims; a video involving Arab-Muslims but no violence, and “24”--which contains Arab-Muslims and violence. Results: Abject failure to replicate, indicating that, in this study, watching "24" had no influence on implicit prejudice toward Arabs.
Summary. Study 1 demonstrated that watching "24" led to higher implicit prejudice toward Arabs, whereas Study 2 did not provide evidence of the same effect. It remains unclear whether watching "24" leads to implicit prejudice against Arabs.