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Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Daniel John Zizzo
Daniel John Zizzo*
Affiliation:
School of Economics and CBESS, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
*
e-mail: d.zizzo@uea.ac.uk
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Abstract

Experimenter demand effects refer to changes in behavior by experimental subjects due to cues about what constitutes appropriate behavior. We argue that they can either be social or purely cognitive, and that, when they may exist, it crucially matters how they relate to the true experimental objectives. They are usually a potential problem only when they are positively correlated with the true experimental objectives’ predictions, and we identify techniques such as non-deceptive obfuscation to minimize this correlation. We discuss the persuasiveness or otherwise of defenses that can be used against demand effects criticisms when such correlation remains an issue.

Keywords

Experimenter demand effectsExperimental designExperimental instructionsSocial desirabilitySocial pressureFramingMethodology

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior B41: Economic Methodology
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 75 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Economic Science Association 2009

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Footnotes

I wish to thank participants to a presentation at Bologna Forli’ and Piers Fleming, Nick Bardsley, Dan Benjamin, Pablo Branas-Garza, Tim Cason, Gary Charness, Andrew Colman, John Duffy, Dirk Engelmann, Paul Ferraro, Shaun Hargreaves Heap, Alexander Koch, Charlie Plott, Jen Shang and two anonymous referees for useful feedback and references on the topic. Partial financial support from the Nuffield Foundation (SGS/35859) is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

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