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Dr. Fox effect

Dr. Fox effect noun: the tendency for students to rate a teacher highly if lectures are presented in a very expressive, humorous, and warm manner, even when the content of the lecture is meaningless and incomprehensible.

Noun

Dr. Fox effect

  1. The tendency for students to rate a teacher highly if lectures are presented in a very expressive, humorous, and warm manner, even when the content of the lecture is meaningless and incomprehensible.
    • Studies have also been done on the psychological aspects of credibility, like the "Dr. Fox effect" research of the early 1970s, in which an actor was programmed to teach material he knew nothing about.1996, Cynthia Crossen, Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America, page 21
    • The focus of this research was not the Dr. Fox effect nor even SETS, but how instructor expressiveness interacted with perceived control to influence achievement test scores.1997, Raymond P. Perry, John C. Smart, Effective Teaching in Higher Education: Research and Practice, page 301

Origin of Dr. Fox effect

Named after the actor Michael Fox, who was presented in the experiment as "Dr. Myron L. Fox".

Questions about Dr. Fox effect

What does Dr. Fox effect mean?
Dr. Fox effect means the tendency for students to rate a teacher highly if lectures are presented in a very expressive, humorous, and warm manner, even when the content of the lecture is meaningless and incomprehensible.
What part of speech is Dr. Fox effect?
Dr. Fox effect is a noun.

Words near Dr. Fox effect in the dictionary

  1. Dr Watsonish
  2. DR-DOS
  3. dr.
  4. Dr. & Mrs. Vandertramp
  5. Dr. Atkins
  6. Dr. Fox effect
  7. Dr. Frankenstein
  8. Dr. Frankensteins
  9. Dr. Google
  10. Dr. House
  11. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Dr. Fox effect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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