Demand characteristics

In research, and particularly psychology, demand characteristics refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and unconsciously change their behavior accordingly.^[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 expectation from the participant 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.
• The negative participant role 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 evaluation of their answers by the experimenter that the participant behaves in a socially desirable way.^[3]

See also

• Hawthorne effect

References

1. ^ 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
2. ^ Dinges, David. In Memory of Dr. Orne
3. ^ 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).