Pioneering research was conducted on demand characteristics by Martin Theodore Orne, who is best known for his research into demand characteristics, illustrating the flaw in informing participants that they are taking part in a psychology experiment, and expecting them to act normally. Demand characteristics refers to a problem which can distort research. Demand characteristics cannot be eliminated from experiments, but demand characteristics can be studied to see their effect on such experiments. Demand characteristic as used in experimental psychology, refers to unintended features of the experiment which affect the results, thus compromising the internal validity of the study. Demand characteristics are considered an extraneous variable, exerting an effect on behavior other than that intended by the experimenter.
The term demand characteristic refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and subconsciously change their behavior to fit that interpretation. Demand Characteristic result as we do not simply respond to a situation or context because the meaning of such a situation or context is not given.
The term demand characteristic is also used in the sociology of deviant behavior to refer to those organizational features of work settings, other than the formal goals of the organizations or principles such as due process model or fairness, which shape arrest decisions, plea bargaining, or jury deliberations. Self-consciousness manifests in a phenomenon known as demand characteristics. Research participants, knowing they are under a magnifying glass, change the way they act or the things they say. It can be subconscious or deliberate. It can be intentioned or malicious. Such behavior modification affects the research at its most fundamental level, it degrades the authenticity of the data.
Demand Characteristics
and Inferential Processes in Psychotherapeutic Change.
Horvath, Peter - Journal
of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Abstract: A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource.
Offers evidence that demand characteristics referring to changes in clients' self-concepts
are the common factors in psychotherapies. Unassertive subjects (N=87) were assigned to
four types of imaginary role playing. Only the demand
characteristics condition increased significantly in assertiveness and self-esteem and
decreased significantly in social discomfort compared to controls.
Examples of demand characteristics which police officers may attend to in making decisions on the street are the informal expectations of police culture. Demand Characteristic is a term used to denote the situation where the results of an experiment are biased because the experimenters' expectancies regarding the performance of the participants on a particular task create an implicit demand for the participants to perform as expected. Subjects might do what they think is expected, “demanded”, Rolex Cellini Replica of them rather than respond in any other way. Demand characteristics have a clear link to Evaluation Apprehension where subjects come to experiments or interviews expecting the possibility that they will be evaluated. Subjects may then behave in a way that is thought to project a favorable image of themselves.
Demand characteristics
in body-size estimation in anorexia nervosa
The British Journal of Psychiatry 149: 113-118 (1986).
We asked 24 patients with anorexia nervosa and 30 normal controls to estimate their
body-size several times, each time using different instructions. Informing the subject that she had made an error without specifying the direction of the
error resulted in reduced over-estimation on a subsequent trial, for both anorexics and
controls. Our results indicate the necessity of controlling the demand characteristics of
such experiments.
Menstrual cycle symptomatology: the role of social expectancy and experimental demand characteristics - Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 47, Issue 1. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of experimental demand characteristics and social expectancies on the report and experience of presumed menstrual cycle-related moods and symptoms. Results indicated that women who were informed of the interest in menstrual cycle symptomatology reported significantly more negative psychologic and somatic symptoms at the premenstrual and menstrual phases than did the women and men not so informed. It appears, therefore, that the report of stereotypic menstrual cycle symptomatology is influenced by social expectancy and experimental demand characteristics.
Demand characteristics,
not effort: The role of backpacks in judging distance
Robert Russell, Frank H. Durgin Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College
Abstract: Does wearing a backpack increase perceived distance, or does it simply encourage
subjects to increase numerical estimates? A no-backpack control condition was also run.
Based on an earlier replication of the backpack experiment outdoors with a male
experimenter, we only expected to find evidence of demand characteristics compliance among
women subjects. We conclude that effects of backpacks on judgments of distance are
probably due exclusively to demand characteristics and not to any actual change in
perception when burdened.
Demand characteristics
of residential substance abuse treatment programs
Christine Timko, Rolex Submariner Replica Watches Katherine Yua and Rudolf H. Moosa
Journal of Substance Abuse, Volume 12, Issue 4, Winter 2000, Pages 387-403
Abstract: Purpose: This study examined the objective demand characteristics of treatment
programs in which substance abuse patients, or psychiatric patients, were residing. Results: When patients
had a substance abuse rather than a psychiatric problem, objective demand characteristics
was higher. Patients in high-demand
programs engaged more in self-initiated activities and participated more in treatment
services and program-organized events. Substance abuse patients' activity and
participation levels were determined jointly by the level of demand characteristic and by
the expectations for patients' expressiveness and self-understanding of their personal
problems.
Demand Characteristics
in Assessing Motion Sickness in a Virtual Environment: Rolex Daytona Replica Or Does Taking a Motion Sickness
Questionnaire Make You Sick?
Sean D. Young, Bernard D. Adelstein, Stephen R. Ellis.
Publisher IEEE Educational Activities Department Piscataway, NJ, USA.
ABSTRACT: The experience of motion sickness in a virtual environment may be measured
through pre and postexperiment self-report studies
such as the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire. There have been no controlled studies to determine to what extent the
user's subjective response is a demand characteristic resulting from pre and
posttest measures. In this study, subjects were given either Simulator Sickness
Questionnaire's both pre and
postvirtual environment immersion, or only postimmersion. This technique tested
for contrast effects due to demand characteristics in which administration of
the questionnaire itself suggested to the participant that the virtual
environment may produce motion sickness.
J.W. Kanter, R.J. Kohlenberg, and E.F. Loftus, Demand Characteristics, Treatment Rationales, and Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Prevention and Treatment, vol. 5, p. 41, 2002.
M.T. Orne, On the Social Psychology of the Psychological Experiment: With Particular Reference to Demand Characteristics and their Implications, Am. Psychologist, vol. 17, pp. 776-783, 1962.
Orne, Martin T. Demand Characteristics and the concept of Quasi-Controls.