Reciprocal reactivity: Response-specific changes in independent observers

Recording another person's behavior within a dyadic interaction of femalecollege students changed the behavior of the member of the dyad who served as the observer. This phenomenon, labeled “reciprocal reactivity”, was investigated in four separate single-case experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the observer's response rate changed systematically whenever she was instructed to record the other subject's behavior, and Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that the reactive effects were limited to the particular response being recorded. All three experiments found that the reactive effects dissipated as soon as the observation was discontinued. In Experiment 4, reciprocal reactivity was found to be weaker than the reactive effects of self-observation.