Experimenter as subject: What can we learn from the
experimenter effect? Mindfield, 8(3), 89-97.
Experimenter effects and similarity to the individual setting
"Confronting the
Experimenter Effect: II." Parapsychology Review, 20, 1989b, 1-5.
The importance of considering
experimenter effects on outcomes in experimental studies dates back to the work of Rosenthal (1966), who documented the influence of a variety of experimenter characteristics (e.g., sex, ethnicity, attire, warmth) on study outcomes.
Confronting the
experimenter effect. Parapsychology Review, 20(4), 1-4.
Wrapped up in the issue of replication difficulties and methodological artefacts is a concern about
experimenter effects. In summarising his contribution, French asks for a reliable demonstration of psi with a medium to large effect size that can operate in the presence of skeptics.
Although a number of factors have been proposed to account for the apparent
experimenter effect, including experimenter beliefs (see Parker, 1975; Sharp & Clark, 1937; Smith, 2003b; Watt & Baker, 2002; Watt & Brady, 2002; Watt & Ramakers, 2003) and experimenter psi (e.g., Palmer, 1997; Schmeidler, 1997), it is possible that the effect of the experimenter is psychosocial in nature.
Along similar lines, the next chapter in the book, authored by Edwin May, Tamas Paulinyi, and Zoltan Vassy (MPV), discusses possible
experimenter effects in presentiment work.
In a previous paper (Parker & Millar, 2014) the crisis in psi research was related to the failure to deal with the psi-based
experimenter effect. The myth here was that by studying psi like any other ability, as a normally distributed variable, progress would be made.
The reason may be that most psi-conducive experimenters preferred to believe in a social interaction theory of the
experimenter effect rather than a psi-based one.
In addition to his critique of Kanthamani and Broughton (1994) and Willin (1996a), Wiseman (2010a) briefly mentions
experimenter effects: "Perhaps the most far-reaching version of this 'get out of a null effect free' card involves an appeal to the '
experimenter effect,' wherein any negative findings are attributed to the psi- inhibitory nature of the parapsychologist running the study" (p.
Goal-oriented psi
experimenter effects. The possibility that an experimenter influences the experimental outcome using psi is the most challenging form of
experimenter effect.