Observer's paradox
In the social sciences, the observer's paradox is a situation in which the phenomenon being observed is unwittingly influenced by the presence of the observer/investigator. == In linguistics == In the field of sociolinguistics, the term Observer’s Paradox was coined by William Labov, who stated with regard to the term: The aim of linguistic research in the community must be to find out how people talk when they are not being systematically observed; yet we can only obtain this data by systematic observation.