Experimenter Effects Flashcards
What are experimenter effects? What are the 2 examples of this?
They refer to any way in which the experimenter might influence the outcome of the experiment. This could be subtle cues that might influence pps behaviours. EG the researcher being male of female may influence the pps behaviour. There are 2 examples of this: the Hawthorne Effect, Demand characteristics.
What is the Hawthorne effect?
Where the mere presence of a researcher effects participants performance at a task. EG a participant may perform worse in a memory test whilst in the presence of an experimenter, compared to if they were to sit the memory test alone- sense of pressure?
What are demand characteristics?
Where the participant guesses the aim of the experiment and alters their behaviour to meet the demands of the experiment, to please the researcher.
What is experimental control?
Refers to methods put in place to prevent confounding variables impacting the experiment.
What does standardisation mean?
Keeping the experiments procedure the same for all participants, EG standardised instructions, timings, apparatus etc. This improves reliability of the experiment as it can be easily replicated.
What are order effects?
Effects that occur due to the order in which participants experience the conditions. Order effects include fatigue and practice effects (getting better at tasks due to repeat exposure).
What is counterbalancing?
A method used to overcome the impact of order effects, in which the experimenter alternates the order of the conditions for each participant. this is done to not affect the validity of results.
What is randomisation?
A method used to overcome the impact of order effects, in which the experimenter randomly allocates participants to an order of the conditions. This is done to not affect the validity of results.
What is a double blind experiment?
Both the participant and researcher do not know the aim of the study, therefore an independent researcher is employed who is unaware of the hypothesis, this controls for demand characteristics and other experimenter effects. This also means that the researcher will interpret ppts’ behaviour objectively, without any bias.
What is a single blind experiment?
The participants are unaware of the true aim of the study (they may be deceived) or are completely unaware that they are part of a study, to help reduce the chance of demand characteristics.
