While it is clear that observing something can change the outcome or behaviour, there is another aspect of the Observer Effect: It also changes the perception of the observer regarding the outcome.

Known as ‘Observer Bias’, outcomes and results can appear altered or distor...

Our own behaviour appears reasonable to us, and any mistakes that we make are easily attributed to other factors. However, if the same mistake is made by a third person, our tendency is to judge them as incompetent or inconsiderate. This is known as The Actor-Observer Bias.

Even on social ...

Most people overlook the effect that people have when someone is observing them. There is a difference in the behaviour of people, animals and atoms when they are being observed.

Though it is not a universal effect, observing living things does change them, and in the cas...

Tracking, monitoring and observing people and animals changes their behaviour.

This has been seen in hospitals where patients and even doctors/nurses behave differently when they know that they are being observed. Even captured animals in a zoo behave differently when they are being w...

Apart from people, the observer effect is famously highlighted in the thought experiment of the physician Erwin Schrödinger.

He states that if a cat is placed in a box of radioactive atoms that may or may not kill it in one hour, the cat is in the state of limbo until someone observes...