What are experimenter effects?

What are experimenter effects?

• A. The intentional manipulation by the participant's own biases.
• B. Where the experimenter changes a person's views usually subconsciously through body language.
• C. The randomization of participants to groups.
• D. The creation of a baseline measure.

Answer: (B)

Experimenter effects are when the person conducting the study unintentionally influences participants’ responses through their own expectations or behavior. This often happens subconsciously, with cues like body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions sending signals about what the researcher expects to find. Those cues can nudge participants to reply or perform in ways that align with the experimenter’s expectations, which can distort the results and threaten the study’s internal validity. This is why the best description is that the experimenter changes a person’s views usually subconsciously through body language. It captures the idea that the influence comes from the researcher and affects how participants respond. The other options don’t fit because they describe different ideas: one refers to participants’ own biases affecting themselves, not the experimenter’s influence; another is about randomizing participants to groups, a design method to control bias; and the last is about creating a baseline measure, which is about starting conditions, not about the experimenter’s influence on responses.

Experimenter effects are when the person conducting the study unintentionally influences participants’ responses through their own expectations or behavior. This often happens subconsciously, with cues like body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions sending signals about what the researcher expects to find. Those cues can nudge participants to reply or perform in ways that align with the experimenter’s expectations, which can distort the results and threaten the study’s internal validity.

This is why the best description is that the experimenter changes a person’s views usually subconsciously through body language. It captures the idea that the influence comes from the researcher and affects how participants respond.

The other options don’t fit because they describe different ideas: one refers to participants’ own biases affecting themselves, not the experimenter’s influence; another is about randomizing participants to groups, a design method to control bias; and the last is about creating a baseline measure, which is about starting conditions, not about the experimenter’s influence on responses.