In social research, particularly in psychology, 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. Typically, demand characteristics are considered an extraneous variable, exerting an effect on behavior other than that intended by the experimenter. Pioneering research was conducted on demand characteristics by Martin Orne. A possible cause for demand characteristics is participants' expectations that they will somehow be evaluated, leading them to figure out a way to 'beat' the experiment to attain good scores in the alleged evaluation. Rather than giving an honest answer, participants may change some or all of their answers to match the experimenter's requirements, that demand characteristics can change participant's behaviour to appear more socially or morally responsible. Demand characteristics cannot be eliminated from experiments, but demand characteristics can be studied to see their effect on such experiments.

Examples of common demand characteristics

Common demand characteristics include: Weber and Cook have described some demand characteristics as involving the participant taking on a role in the experiment. These roles include:

Dealing with demand characteristics

Researchers use a number of different approaches for reducing the effect of demand characteristics in research situations. Some of the more common approaches include the following: