Threats to Validity Flashcards
What are the threats to Validity?
Demand characteristics ad researcher bias.
What are demand characteristics?
Participants want to be helpful and therefore they pay attention to cues in the experimental situation that may guide their behaviour. This means the participants don’t behave in the way they usually would and therefore the demand characteristics may act as an extraneous variable.
What is researcher bias?
The information from a researcher that encourages certain behaviors in the participant which might lead to a fulfillment of the investigators expectations. Also the investigator may operational the measurement of variables in such a way that the desired results are more likely.
How do psychologists deal with these problems?
Single blind design - participant isn’t aware of true aims of the experiment, this prevents the participant from seeking cues about the aims and reacting to them.
Double blind design - Participant AND the researcher are unaware of the aims and hypothesis of the experiment, therefore the person conducting the investigation is less likely to produce cues about what he/she expects.
Experimental realism - The researcher makes an experimental task sufficiently engaging, the participant then pays attention to the task rather than the fact they are being observed.
