Clever Hans

Name: Darrien Barajas
Date: October 30, 2014
Section #: 1001
Net ID: darrienb

Clever Hans and the Methods of Psychology In psychology there are several different types of research designs and strategies. With research designs and strategies, there come errors. These research designs include within-subject experiments, between-group experiments, correlation study, descriptive studies, and so many more. A common error found in these experiments is the problem of observer-expectancy effects. A very well known true story of a horse named Clever Hans helped scientist understand certain errors in experiments, like observer-expectancy effects, and taught them how to avoid these easily made fallacies. A magnificent example of how the story of Clever Hans and how psychologist Oskar Pfungst taught scientist a wonderful lesson on experiment fallacies is http://wildequus.org/library/hans-the-wonderhorse/. This source explains the background story of Clever Hans the horse and the experiment done to teach scientist several lessons.
Clever Hans Clever Hans was a horse owned by a retired math teacher, Mr. von Osten. Over time Hans became famous all over Europe for his intelligence and high level of education in certain subjects. Mr. von
He did not believe that a horse was able to be educated and be as knowledgeable in the same way as a human. Pfungst preformed simple experiments on Hans the horse to prove his theory that Hans did not answer the questions because he understood the question and knew the answer but because he was responding to visual signs given by the person questioning or other that were observing. In order to test his theory Pfungst put fitted blinders on Hans so that he was no able to see anyone and continued to ask him questions. When the blinders were placed on Hans he was not able to answer any of the questions asked because there was no one in his direct