Demand characteristics
In research—particularly psychology—demand characteristics refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and unconsciously change their behavior to fit that interpretation.[1] Pioneering research was conducted on demand characteristics by Martin Orne.[2] Typically, they are considered a confounding variable, exerting an effect on behavior other than that intended by the experimenter.
A possible reason for demand characteristics is the participant's expectation that he or she will somehow be evaluated and thus figures out a way to 'beat' the experiment to attain good scores in the alleged evaluation.
Weber and Cook have described some demand characteristics as involving the participant taking on a role in the experiment. These roles include:
- The good-participant role in which the participant attempts to discern the experimenter's hypotheses and to confirm them.[3]
- The negative-participant role (also known as the screw-you effect[4]) in which the participant attempts to discern the experimenter's hypotheses, but only in order to destroy the credibility of the study.
- The faithful-participant role in which the participant follows the instructions given by the experimenter to the letter.
- The apprehensive-participant role in which the participant is so concerned about how the experimenter might evaluate the responses that the participant behaves in a socially desirable way.[5]
[edit] See also
- Hawthorne effect
- For a measure of the potential influence of demand characteristics in research settings, see Rubin, Paolini's and Crisp's (2010) Perceived Awareness of the Research Hypothesis scale.
[edit] References
- ^ Orne, Martin T. Demand Characteristics and the concept of Quasi-Controls. in Artifacts in Behavioral Research: Robert Rosenthal and Ralph L. Rosnow's Classic Books, beginning with page 110
- ^ Dinges, David. In Memory of Dr. Orne
- ^ Nichols, A. L., & Maner, J. K. (2008). The good subject effect: Investigating participant demand characteristics. Journal of General Psychology, 135, 151-165.
- ^ Masling, J. (1966) Role-related behavior of the subject and psychologist and its effect upon psychological data. In D. Levine (Ed.), The Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. Pp. 67-103.
- ^ Barabasz, A. F., & Barabasz, M. (1992). Research designs and considerations. In E. Frornm & M. R. Nash (Eds.), Contemporary hypnosis research (pp. 173-200). New York: Guilford. The preceding paper attributes the concept to Weber, S. J., & Cook, T. D. (1972). Subject effects in laboratory research: An examination of subject roles, demand characteristics, and valid inference. Psychological Bulletin, 77(4), 273-295. The papers are described in, and citations copied from Herber, Thomas John. (May 2006). The Effects of Hypnotic Ego Strengthening on Self-esteem (masters degree thesis) (p. 43).
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