Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments
Open accessAbstract
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.
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To mitigate demand characteristics, the authors followed best practices in designing the experiment, providing only essential information about the study's purpose.
“To mitigate the risk of demand characteristics associated with the close proximity of the assessment, we followed best practices in designing the experiment (55), providing only essential information about the study's purpose.”
From Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization (2025) · cites this paper as [55]
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Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
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“To mitigate the risk of demand effects associated with the close proximity of the assessment, we followed best practices in designing the experiment ( 55 ), providing only essential information about the study’s purpose.”
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- Authors
- Zizzo, D. J.
- Affiliations
- University of East Anglia (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Zizzo, Daniel John
- ORCID
- Zizzo, Daniel John
- Venue
- Experimental Economics
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2010-03
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 75-98
- ISSN
- 1386-4157 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6938
- OpenAlex
- W3121527857
- Cited by
- 1,194
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 60 · 2025: 99 · 2024: 99 · 2023: 99 · 2022: 101 · 2021: 115 · 2020: 111 · 2019: 88 · 2018: 67 · 2017: 68 · 2016: 51 · 2015: 57 · 2014: 56 · 2013: 47 · 2012: 41
- FWCI
- 66.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Experimental Economics (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/H004831/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
- Keywords
- experimenter demand effects, obfuscation, deception in experiments, experimental design
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