Sixty years after Orne’s American Psychologist article: A Conceptual Framework for Subjective Experiences Elicited by Demand Characteristics.

Abstract

The present article proposes a critical discussion of “demand characteristics”. This notion, despite its longstanding and widespread use in behavioral research, suffers from significant conceptual ambiguities. After briefly discussing the historical roots of “demand characteristics” and stressing that this notion remains highly influential in psychological research (Section 1), we proceed to its conceptual analysis (Section 2). Here, we discuss the complex nature of “demand characteristics” regarding effects, mechanisms, and measures. Then, we propose a Multifaceted Demand Characteristics Model (Section 3), and we apply it to two research domains of high contemporary interest: Evaluative Conditioning (Section 4.1) and Rubber Hand Illusion (Section 4.2). In the General Discussion, we summarize the central insights of the current analysis and discuss when and how theorization around “demand characteristics” may prevent and help advance behavioral research and interventions.

Order effects in the rubber hand illusion

“…Note also that, while the RHI is typically reported to occur in 70% of participants (Riemer et al, 2019), just 50% of participants who were not previously exposed to the ownership statement reported ownership experience (compare to the approximately 50% of this group who reported referred touch experience in the asynchronous control condition). Given the substantial relationship between phenomenological control (trait response to imaginative suggestion) and ownership agreement scores , these data are consistent with experience of ownership of a fake hand being at least partly attributable to phenomenological control (along with other hypothesis awareness effects; see Corneille & Lush, 2021).…”

“…Participants who were exposed to the control (asynchronous) condition prior to the experimental (synchronous) condition reported higher illusion index in the synchronous condition, and a greater difference between synchronous and asynchronous condition for both illusion index and proprioceptive drift. A simple explanation for these order effects is that demand characteristics communicated during exposure to the control condition drive hypothesis awareness for the second (experimental) condition, which can be met by a range of responses (e.g., faking, bias or phenomenological control; see Corneille & Lush, 2021).…”

“…Demand characteristics are cues which inform participants' interpretations of an experimental situation (Orne, 1962; for recent overviews see Corneille & Lush, 2021;Klein et al, 2012;Sharpe & Whelton, 2016). Such cues include (but are not limited to) prior beliefs, experimental instructions and recruitment materials and aspects of the experimental procedure itself.…”

“…Such cues include (but are not limited to) prior beliefs, experimental instructions and recruitment materials and aspects of the experimental procedure itself. According to a recent model of demand characteristics (Corneille & Lush, 2021) hypothesis-awareness (accurate knowledge of experimental aims; participants may also be hypothesis-mistaken, or hypothesis-unaware) can lead to a range of responses including faking, imagination, reactance and phenomenological control (response to imaginative suggestion according to a stable trait ability; Dienes et al, 2020;Lush et al, 2020). In repeated-measures experiments, cues in the first condition undertaken may increase hypothesis awareness, which can in turn influence responses in the second condition, resulting in systematic order effects.…”

Reply to: No specific relationship between hypnotic suggestibility and the rubber hand illusion - Rubber hand effects remain confounded by hypothesis awareness and substantially related to trait phenomenological control

“…Contrary to their argument, this new analysis is entirely consistent with our results and interpretation (they also extend our control group analysis of proprioceptive drift and hypnotisability to the whole sample; however, the data are insensitive and no conclusions follow 6 ). Critically, Ehrsson et al fail to acknowledge that their interpretation of the difference between the synchronous condition and an asynchronous control condition is confounded by awareness of the experimental hypotheses arising from demand characteristics 7 . For a control condition to be valid, all factors except the manipulated factor (in this case the timing of multisensory stimuli) must be held constant across conditions.…”