The psychologist Robert Rosenthal told student researchers that some rats in a study would learn a task quickly and others would learn the task slowly.In reality, there was no difference in the rats' abilities to learn the task.When the students tested the rats, the animals' learning matched what the students were told.These results reflect the

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This scenario describes the experimenter expectancy effect, which occurs when the expectations of the experimenter inadvertently influence the results of the study. In this case, Robert Rosenthal's expectation that some rats would learn the task quickly and others would learn slowly may have influenced the way the student researchers interacted with the rats or interpreted their behavior, leading to the observed results.

The Psychologist Robert Rosenthal Told Student Researchers That Some Rats