Activity #4

In the following, I describe an article from a teaching journal in which daily horoscopes are used to teach students about expectancy effects.

Tue, 16 May 2000
Jeffry P. Ricker
Scottsdale Community College
jeff.ricker@sccmail.maricopa.edu

A demonstration described by Geoffrey D. Munro and James E. Munro in the new issue of _Teaching of Psychology_ (Spring, 2000, Vol. 27, No. 2) may be good for [getting students to question their beliefs]. The article, titled "Using daily horoscopes to demonstrate expectancy confirmation" (pp. 114-116), discusses how to get students to realize that their expectations may cause them to make false inferences. Here is the article's abstract:

"Prior expectations can lead a person to process information in a biased manner such that the expectations are confirmed. Despite its prevalence in everyday judgements, people lack insight into expectancy confirmation processes. The classroom demonstration we describe uses daily horoscopes to demonstrate the powerful effect that expectations can have on judgements. More students reported that the events of a recent day most closely matched the prediction for their particular astrological sign when the astrological signs were presented along with the predictions than when they were not. Students reported that the demonstration was interesting, and 95% of the students correctly answered a question regarding the phenomenon on a subsequent examination." (p. 114)

The authors first had students think about what had happened to them two days before the class meeting, and then presented each of 12 horoscopes from that day that were labeled with the corresponding astrological sign. The students were asked to pick the horoscope which most closely approximated what had happened to them two days before. Of course, many students (about 1/3--a chance result would be 1/12) chose the horoscope that described their astrological sign. Next, the authors had students look at horoscopes from one day before, but without the corresponding astrological signs appearing next to the horoscopes. Students were asked to choose the horoscope that most closely approximated what happened to them one day before. Of course, without the label students now were less likely to choose the horoscope that corresponded to their astrological sign. In fact, the number of matches was not significantly different from chance level. The authors mention various discussions that might be facilitated after the demonstration in order to consolidate the lesson.