4/21/2020 Observer-expectancy effect - Wikipedia

Observer-expectancy effect
The observer-expectancy effect (also called the experimenter-expectancy effect,
expectancy bias, observer effect, or experimenter effect) is a form of reactivity in which a
researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence the participants of an
experiment. Confirmation bias can lead to the experimenter interpreting results incorrectly because
of the tendency to look for information that conforms to their hypothesis, and overlook information
that argues against it.[1] It is a significant threat to a study's internal validity, and is therefore
typically controlled using a double-blind experimental design.

It may include conscious or unconscious influences on subject behavior including creation of

demand characteristics that influence subjects, and altered or selective recording of experimental
results themselves.[2]

Contents
Overview
Prevention
See also
References
External links

Overview
The experimenter may introduce cognitive bias into a study in several ways. In what is called the
observer-expectancy effect, the experimenter may subtly communicate their expectations for the
outcome of the study to the participants, causing them to alter their behavior to conform to those
expectations. Such observer bias effects are near-universal in human data interpretation under
expectation and in the presence of imperfect cultural and methodological norms that promote or
enforce objectivity.[3]

The classic example of experimenter bias is that of "Clever Hans", an Orlov Trotter horse claimed by
his owner von Osten to be able to do arithmetic and other tasks. As a result of the large public
interest in Clever Hans, philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf, along with his assistant Oskar
Pfungst, investigated these claims. Ruling out simple fraud, Pfungst determined that the horse could
answer correctly even when von Osten did not ask the questions. However, the horse was unable to
answer correctly when either it could not see the questioner, or if the questioner themselves was
unaware of the correct answer: When von Osten knew the answers to the questions, Hans answered
correctly 89% of the time. However, when von Osten did not know the answers, Hans guessed only
6% of questions correctly.

Pfungst then proceeded to examine the behaviour of the questioner in detail, and showed that as the
horse's taps approached the right answer, the questioner's posture and facial expression changed in
ways that were consistent with an increase in tension, which was released when the horse made the
final, correct tap. This provided a cue that the horse had learned to use as a reinforced cue to stop
tapping.

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Experimenter-bias also influences human subjects. As an example, researchers compared

performance of two groups given the same task (rating portrait pictures and estimating how
successful each individual was on a scale of -10 to 10), but with different experimenter expectations.

In one group, ("Group A"), experimenters were told to expect positive ratings while in another
group, ("Group B"), experimenters were told to expect negative ratings. Data collected from Group A
was a significant and substantially more optimistic appraisal than the data collected from Group B.
The researchers suggested that experimenters gave subtle but clear cues with which the subjects
complied.[4]

Prevention
Double blind techniques may be employed to combat bias by causing the experimenter and subject
to be ignorant of which condition data flows from.

It might be thought that, due to the central limit theorem of statistics, collecting more independent
measurements will improve the precision of estimates, thus decreasing bias. However, this assumes
that the measurements are statistically independent. In the case of experimenter bias, the measures
share correlated bias: simply averaging such data will not lead to a better statistic but may merely
reflect the correlations among the individual measurements and their non-independent nature.

See also
List of cognitive biases
Allegiance bias
Cultural bias
Demand characteristics
Epistemic feedback
Funding bias
Hawthorne effect
N rays – imaginary radiation
Naturalistic observation
Observer bias
Participant observer
Placebo and Nocebo
Publication bias
Pygmalion effect – teachers who expect higher achievement from some children actually get it
Reality tunnel
Reflexivity (social theory)
Subject-expectancy effect
Systematic bias
White-hat bias

References
1. Goldstein, Bruce. "Cognitive Psychology". Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011, p. 374
2. Barry H. Kantowitz; Henry L. Roediger, III; David G. Elmes (2009). Experimental Psychology (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=2-5VL8PHLsIC&pg=PA371). Cengage Learning. p. 371.
ISBN 978-0-495-59533-5. Retrieved 7 September 2013.

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3. Rosenthal, R. (1966). Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research. NY: Appleton-Century-

Crofts.
4. Rosenthal R. Experimenter effects in behavioral research. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, 1966. 464 p.

External links
Skeptic's Dictionary on the Experimenter Effect (http://skepdic.com/experimentereffect.html)

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