Which variable does the experimenter effect affect?

In the experiment, the examiner may influence the subjects intentionally or unintentionally in some way (such as expression, gesture, tone, etc.). ), let their response echo the examiner's expectations. This phenomenon is called the experimenter effect.

Understanding of experimenter effect

The trap closely related to the required characteristics is the experimenter effect, that is, the experimenter inadvertently reveals his expectations to the subjects, thus affecting the experimental results. For example, the experimenter may not realize that when the subject has a correct reaction, he nods his head in affirmation, but frowns wrongly in denial. The gender, race and ethics of experimenters are also potential experimenter effects. When doing research projects related to these characteristics, such as the experiment on the influence of skin color on job performance evaluation, it is easier to make the experimental results biased by the characteristics of experimenters such as race.

These effects are not limited to experiments on human subjects. The experimenter effect will also appear in relatively objective experiments with animals as experimental objects.

People think that helping people with serious communication difficulties to move their hands can make them express their ideas through keyboards. But in fact, these people with communication difficulties sometimes don't look at the keyboard at all, and the hand movements are just the behavior of the "healer".

Divining staff. The diviner thinks that he can explore minerals and water with a divining stick without the help of scientific instruments. A study of 1948 tested the ability of 58 explorers to explore water sources, and none of them was more accurate than random selection.

The best way to eliminate this experimenter effect is to let the experimenter not know the experimental conditions, because the experimenter does not know the experimental conditions, so he has no expectation for the subjects. Double-blind treatment in medical experiments is a good example to eliminate the experimenter effect.