Response to Human Behavior Experiment...

I was part of the group that was being observed however I only really caught onto the fact that we were part of an experiment, half way through! When I did realize, I felt quite uneasy and I didn't really know how I should act. Apparently I took on the leadership roll within the group which is something that I'm prone to doing, and I also laughed the most out of the members of the group. This laughter was awkward laughter as I didn't really know what was going on so I just laughed uneasily. The feelings that I felt may influence knowledge gained by a human scientist because they would know that once they were 'discovered' the 'guinea pigs' may behave differently because they feel like they are being scrutinized/pressured. I think this would fit into the category of demand characteristics however instead of for instance, verbally answering a question the way we assume the questioner wants us to respond, we are physically acting differently. Therefore a scientist would not be able to a) test our group again for 'accuracy. b) use the same group of assessors again because the would already have a preconceived notion of what 'should' happen. And c) state that their results were both reliable and draw accurate conclusions for larger groups of people from them because our behavior was not natural 100% of the time.