Apprehension about Evaluation, Paralanguage Cues and the Experimenter-Bias Effect

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Abstract
Previous research had implicated the magnitude of evaluation apprehension in subjects and the existence of vocal paralanguage cues in experimenter instructions as critical to the transmission of experimenter-bias effects. To examine the interrelationship of these variables, 106 female nursing students participated in the standard Rosenthal picture-rating task. The 3×2×2 factorial design included three types of paralanguage cues: strongly positive, strongly negative, and neutral; high and low apprehension about evaluation; and a third condition transposing the sequence of presentation of the paralanguage cues and the manipulation of apprehension about evaluation. No significant main effects were demonstrated and only the interaction of important paralanguage cues and apprehension about evaluation achieved statistical significance. Contrary to predictions, the subjects high in apprehension about evaluation responded negativistically to differential-emphasis cues, whereas the control subjects or those low in apprehension about evaluation conformed to the cues for differential emphasis.