Rosenthal effect

In social psychology, the Rosenthal effect , experimenter (expectation) effect or experimenter artefact is the result of an experimenter-test subject relationship through which positive expectations, attitudes, convictions and positive stereotypes of the experimenter arise in the form of a “ self-fulfilling prophecy ” affect the result of the experiment.

In the meantime, the term experimenter artifact has established itself in science .

The classic experiment by Robert Rosenthal and KL Fode

In a laboratory experiment , twelve students were given five laboratory rats of the same strain each. Half of the students were told that “their” rats were bred to run through a maze particularly quickly, the other half of the students were told that “their” rats were bred for particular stupidity. Although the rats were actually all from the same genetic strain, the rats whose investigators were told that their rats were particularly intelligent performed significantly better than the rats in the control group. Rosenthal and Fode's explanation for this was that the student investigators 'projections influenced the rats' performance.

Similar effects in scientific experiments

The Hawthorne effect is a change in behavior that is attributed solely to a test subject's awareness of being under observation in the course of an investigation or an experiment, without the test director expressly directing specific, increased performance requirements or other expectations of them.

As subjects effects effects are called, in which the experience of subjects with experiments, the suspicion of deception, the interpretation of requirement characteristics ( demand characteristics ) influenced by the subjects or the reaction trends in social desirability of the experiment.

See also

• Pygmalion effect
• List of classic experiments in psychology
• Threat from stereotypes
• Constructivism (philosophy)

literature

Rosenthal, Robert; Fode, KL, "The Effect of Experimental Bias on the Performance of the Albino Rat", in: Behavioral Science 8 (1963), pp. 183-189.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jürgen Bortz, Nicola Döring: Research methods and evaluation for human and social scientists . Springer, 4th edition 2006, page 82f.
2. ^ Manfred Bornewasser: Organizational diagnostics and organizational development . Dietrich von der Oelsnitz, Jürgen Weibler (ed.). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-17-020077-7 , page 80.
3. ^ Silke Grafe: Conception of the empirical evaluation . In: Promotion of problem-solving skills when learning with computer simulations .
4. ↑ Rosenthal, Robert; Fode, KL, "The Effect of Experimental Bias on the Performance of the Albino Rat", in: Behavioral Science 8 (1963), pp. 183-189.
5. ^ Bornewasser, Manfred; Hesse, Friedrich Wilhelm; Mielke, Rosemarie; Mummendey, Hans Dieter, Introduction to Social Psychology, Heidelberg 1979, p. 198.