Campbell's law

Definition

Campbell's law is an adage developed by Donald T. Campbell, a psychologist and social scientist who often wrote about research methodology, which states:The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

Related concepts

Abilene paradox Adage Adverse effect Barack Obama Blowback (intelligence)Braess's paradox Butterfly effect CSI effect Cobra effect Donald T. Campbell East Lansing, MI Evidence-based policy Excess burden of taxation Externality Four Pests campaign George W. Bush Goodhart's law Hawthorne effect High-stakes testing Hutber's law Hydra effect Inverse consequences Jevons paradox Lucas critique Murphy's law No Child Left Behind Act Nocebo Observer effect (physics)Osborne effect Parable of the broken window Paradox of enrichment Parkinson's law Perverse incentive Policy-based evidence making Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Proxy (statistics)Public policy Race to the Top Rebound effect (conservation)Reflexivity (social theory)Research methodology Risk compensation Self-defeating prophecy Self-refuting idea Serendipity Social indicator Social science Social trap Streisand effect Surrogation Teaching to the test The Accounting Review The purpose of a system is what it does Tony Blair Tragedy of the commons Tyranny of small decisions Unintended consequences

6 concepts already in your glossary