Demand characteristics

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Demand characteristics is, within the field of cognitive psychology a term for the features of an experiment which is the result of the participants figuring out the purpose of the experiment, and thus acting accordingly to what they believe is expected from them.

A possible reason for demand characteristics is the expectation from the participant that he or she will somehow be evaluated and thus figures out a way to 'beat' the experiment to attain good scores in the alleged evaluation.

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