the expectancy effect in anthropological research: an experimental study of riddle collection

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of anthropologists' expectations on the results of empirical field studies. Interviewers were provided with one of three different expectation sets concerning the number of riddles they could expect to collect from a sample of college students. Interviewers then collected riddles from these students, and it was discovered that the more riddles an interviewer expected to collect, the more he or she did collect. Sex of the interviewer and the interviewer's previous experience also influenced the number of riddles collected, as did the size of the room in which the interviewing occurred.