Investigating fame judgments: on the generality of hypotheses, conclusions, and measurement models

In this article, we try to clarify some of the issues raised by S.C. Draine, A.G. Greenwald, and M.R. Banaji (1996) concerning our investigation into the gender bias in fame judgments (A. Buchner & W. Wippich, 1996). First, we did not test the general hypothesis and did draw the general conclusion that Drain et al. suggest we did. Second, we did did not reject M.R. Banaji and A.G. Greenwald's (1995) assumptions about the familiarity of male and female names in the fame judgment task, but we showed how one could have come to reject it using a widespread measurement model for the process dissociation procedure. Third, we argue that the processes which Draine et al. suggest should also be included in the measurement model we used are probably negligible, and if they are not, then the validity of the results of a number of fame judgment experiments must be called into question. In general, however, we agree with what seems to be the main message of M.R. Banaji and A.G. Greenwald's (1995) research, namely, that social categories have to be considered whenever priming is investigated within a social domain.