Posted: December 22nd, 2016

In one study (Rosenthal, 1966), students taught rats to run a maze. Half the students were told that their rats had been bred to be maze bright, and half were told that their rats had been bred to be maze dull.

In one study (Rosenthal, 1966), students taught rats to run a maze. Half the students were told that their rats had been bred to be maze bright, and half were told that their rats had been bred to be maze dull. In reality, there were no genetic differences between the two groups of rats, yet the supposedly brainy rats actually did learn the maze more quickly, apparently because of the way the students treated them. What did this study demonstrate?

replication
volunteer bias
experimenter effects
principle of falsifiability