AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Demand characteristics can invalidate research studies by providing an alternative explanation for the results. They pose a threat to both internal and external validity. When you have demand characteristics, the internal validity of your experiment isn’t secure.

Detailed explanation-2: -There are eight threats to internal validity: history, maturation, instrumentation, testing, selection bias, regression to the mean, social interaction and attrition.

Detailed explanation-3: -History, maturation, selection, mortality and interaction of selection and the experimental variable are all threats to the internal validity of this design.

Detailed explanation-4: -A possible cause for demand characteristics is participants’ expectations that they will somehow be evaluated, leading them to figure out a way to ‘beat’ the experiment to attain good scores in the alleged evaluation.