Demand Characteristics
Demand Characteristics is an expression from experimental psychology and includes the subjectively perceived requirement content of the respective experimental situation ("hypothesis, what the test person thinks they have to do"). Demand characteristics can influence or impair the validity of experiments in a negative sense. The concept was suggested by Martin T. Orne (1962).
According to Orne, four types of test persons can be distinguished:
- the "good test subject" tries to guess the examination hypothesis with recourse to the "demand characteristics" and to behave accordingly, so that he can help to meet the expectations of the examination,
- the “negativistic subject” also tries to guess the hypothesis, but then intentionally behaves in such a way that he refutes the hypothesis or tries to sabotage its probation,
- the "test subject who made an effort to evaluate himself" who wants to make a good impression (on the test director) and who is therefore particularly susceptible to biases such as the social desirability of answers,
- the ideal type of the “honest test subject” who relies exclusively on the exact following of the instructions and largely neglects to form and search for hypotheses.
literature
- Buchwald, Alexander M., Stephen Strack, and James C. Coyne. "Demand characteristics and the Velten mood induction procedure." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 49.3 (1981): 478.
- Orne, Martin T. "On the social psychology of the psychological experiment: With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implications." American Psychologist 11/17 (1962): 776.
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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: a re-issue of Artifact in behavioral research, Experimenter effects in behavioral research and The volunteer subject (2009), beginning with page 110
- ↑ http://www.psych.upenn.edu/history/orne/orneobitdingespenngazette.html