From the historical episode of Hans, the horse that could count, psychology continually renews the problem of (the researcher's) influence as bias to the investigation. In the first part of this text, we will seek to explore two series of researches emerged at the sixties on the antagonistic responses they give to the issue of compliance of the studied subjects: the researches of Martin Orne with hypnosis and of Rosenthal with "the mice from Berkeley". We will examine then how the complacency of the experimental subjects is effect of the experimental device worried about its inhibition and not an essential characteristic to be controlled. In the second part, in turn, we will explore Valins' experiment.
experimental devices; research; influence; emotion
