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pectancy effects was conducted by Rosental and Fode (1963) with laboratoryrats. The experimenters were undergraduate psychology students who were ledto believe that they would acquire practice in established experimentalprocedures. One half of the experimenters were led to believe that the rats thatthey would use had been bred from exceptionally intelligent blood stock, whilethe other half were also inaccurately informed that the rats were less gifted. Inactual fact, the rats had been selected at random from a homogeneous ratcolony and there was, therefore, no difference as far as their intelligence wasconcerned. The final results confirmed the expectancy effect: the first group ofexperimenters, who had expected their rats to learn more quickly, reported thatthis had indeed been the case, whereas the second group with the supposedlydull rats, reported that their rats had not acquired the skills as quickly.In a recent review of the literature on interviewing techniques, Campbell et al.(1981) point out the existence of a similar orientation effect which they refer toas reinforcement and feedback. They draw attention to the fact that in severalstudies it has been indicated that when the interviewer provides positivefeedback by, for example, saying um-hum or good, this has a definite influenceon subsequent responses. It is evident that systematic approval on the part ofthe interviewer as far as some of the responses are concerned, could have aclear biasing effect on the information obtained.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaPARTICIPANT EFFECTSThe mere fact that human beings are studied, leads to atypical behaviour. It isprobably accurate to claim that the first description of participant effects in theliterature of the social sciences is to be found in the publication byRoethlisberger and Dickson (1939). Four researchers, Mayo, Roethlisberger,Whitehead, and Dickson, embarked upon a research project at the Hawthornefactory of the Western Electric Company in 1927. The original intention in theresearch was to study the effects of working conditions such as temperature,lighting, rest periods, working hours, and so on, on worker productivity byobserving six female workers. The interesting, and unexpected, finding wasthat the workers’ performance increased irrespective of which one of thevariables was manipulated. Irrespective of whether working hours wereincreased or reduced, and rest periods lengthened or shortened, productivityincreased consistently. The researchers interpreted their findings as meaningthat the employees felt flattered to have been able to participate in theexperiment! It has subsequently become common practice to refer to this typeof participant effect as the Hawthorne effect.Referring to the same effect, Selltiz et al. (1959) called it the guinea-pig effect.If people feel that they are ‘guinea-pigs’ being experimented with, or ifthey feel that they are being ‘tested’ and must make a good impression,or if the method of data collection suggests responses or stimulates an86