The John Henry effect is a bias that can occur in social experiments if members of a control group are aware of their status and are able to actively work harder to overcome the "disadvantage" of being in the control group, thus skewing results of the study. For example, if in an educational trial where the school classes who are in the treatment receive an extra support teacher, students who are in the control group may be induced to work harder to overcome that disadvantage.
The John Henry effect is a bias that can occur in social experiments if members of a control group are aware of their status and are able to actively work harder to overcome the "disadvantage" of being in the control group, thus skewing results of the study. For example, if in an educational trial where the school classes who are in the treatment receive an extra support teacher, students who are in the control group may be induced to work harder to overcome that disadvantage.
Source: Wikipedia "John Henry effect" · CC BY-SA 4.0
Share this article: X · Bluesky