A Critical Appraisal of Demand Artifacts in Consumer Research

Especially since the publication of Sawyer's instructive article on the topic, consumer researchers have been concerned that demand artifacts significantly compromise the validity and generalizability of experimental findings. In this article the authors provide an overview of the issues surrounding the demand-artifacts controversy, evaluate the preconditions for demand artifacts. and offer a critique of suppositions about the consequences and appropriate control of demand artifacts. J. Kellaris and A. Cox's (1989) critique of G. Gorn's (1982) well-known classical conditioning experiments provides the back-drop for much of the discussion.