Question

Priya is participating in a psychological experiment for one of the graduate students at her university. She is pretty confident that she knows the true intent of the study and is trying to answer the questions accordingly. A common pitfall in experiments, Priya is falling prey to ______________.

Answer 1

A common pitfall in experiments, Priya is falling prey to participant demand.

Step-by-step explanation:

From the explanation, we can see Priya is trying to adjust her behavior and answers to what she believes is the purpose of the study. That is a phenomenon called participant demand. In research, especially in psychology, participant demand happens when the participants form an interpretation of the research's purpose and change their behavior, subconsciously, to fit that interpretation. A possible explanation as to why that occurs is the participants' belief that they will be somehow evaluated. They try to do well, then, to obtain a good score.