Psychology And The Observer Effect

The problem with psychology is that it deals with people. What you're studying are persons, fully capable and fully vibrant, and not some static phenomena, imprisoned to behave according to the laws of nature.

Ironically, despite this, the Observer Effect borrowed from Physics can still apply to Psychology, albeit with some creative interpretation.

The Observer effect states that "the act of observation changes something in the observed phenomenon."

In studying individuals, the same can also be said. For instance, I want to find out if behavioral cues among the members of a peer group are readily shared or not. The simple fact that the subject knows they are being observed leads them to either modify their behavior or to go along with their natural mannerisms. Either way, my study above is and will be subject to doubt since a person can always change his ways at any time, given the necessary motivation and agenda.

Contrast this to what physicists study. Although particles being observed readily change properties or vectors upon measurement of a certain value, these variations can easily be remedied by adjusting computations to allow variances. Alas, for psychology, these methods to permit allowances are simply not applicable.

I guess that's probably why you don't encounter too many case studies about adults in psychology. Apart from the fact that designing such studies require extensive preparation, the Observer effect is greatly exaggerated among them as opposed to, say, studying kids who will more or less behave the same way regardless if they're being observed or not.