Demand characteristics

In social research, particularly in psychology, the term demand characteristic refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and subconsciously change their behavior to fit that interpretation. Typically, demand characteristics are considered an extraneous variable, exerting an effect on behavior other than that intended by the experimenter. Pioneering research was conducted on demand characteristics by Martin Orne. A possible cause for demand characteristics is participants' expectations that they will somehow be evaluated, leading them to figure out a way to 'beat' the experiment to attain good scores in the alleged evaluation. Rather than giving an honest answer, participants may change some or all of their answers to match the experimenter's requirements, that demand characteristics can change participant's behaviour to appear more socially or morally responsible. Demand characteristics cannot be eliminated from experiments, but demand characteristics can be studied to see their effect on such experiments. Common demand characteristics include: Rumors of the study – any information, true or false, circulated about the experiment outside of the experiment itself. Setting of the laboratory – the location where the experiment is being performed, if it is significant. Explicit or implicit communication – any communication between the participant and experimenter, whether it be verbal or non-verbal, that may influence their perception of the experiment. 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 (also known as the please-you effect) in which the participant attempts to discern the experimenter's hypotheses and to confirm them. The participant does not want to "ruin" the experiment. The negative-participant role (also known as the screw-you effect) in which the participant attempts to discern the experimenter's hypotheses, but only in order to destroy the credibility of the study.

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Related concepts (2)

Subject-expectancy effect

In scientific research and psychotherapy, the subject-expectancy effect, is a form of reactivity that occurs when a research subject expects a given result and therefore unconsciously affects the outcome, or reports the expected result. Because this effect can significantly bias the results of experiments (especially on human subjects), double-blind methodology is used to eliminate the effect. Like the observer-expectancy effect, it is often a cause of "odd" results in many experiments.

Reflexivity (social theory)

In epistemology, and more specifically, the sociology of knowledge, reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect, especially as embedded in human belief structures. A reflexive relationship is multi-directional when the causes and the effects affect the reflexive agent in a layered or complex sociological relationship. The complexity of this relationship can be furthered when epistemology includes religion.