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This project investigates the applicability of associative learning theory to the understanding of minority group stereotypes. Hamilton and Gifford (1976) proposed that negative stereotypes of minority social groups are expressions of a perceived but nevertheless illusory correlation between group labels and certain negative behaviours. The original study showed that participants had a more negative impression of one group simply as a result of having had less experience with that group. Associative learning theories like the ones proposed by Rescorla and Wagner (1972) to account for animal learning and a recent modification by Van Hamme and Wasserman (1994) to predict human causal learning, suggest that the strength of any positive or negative affect about a group and its actions might be a function of learned associations between a group label and certain behaviours. According to these theories, experimentally induced stereotypes should diminish with increased exposure to the stereotyped group. A series of experiments based on Hamilton and Gifford’s illusory correlation paradigm tests this and other predictions of the two models, with a view to identifying variables that determine stereotype acquisition and change

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