Martin Theodore Orne

Martin Theodore Orne, M.D., Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, died February 11, 2000 at the age of 72. He was a professor in the School of Medicine for 32 years before becoming emeritus professor in 1996. Born in Vienna, Austria in 1927, Dr. Orne received his M.D. degree from Tufts University Medical School in 1955, with a residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University in 1958. Upon coming to Penn in 1964, Professor Orne established and directed the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry, a research laboratory in the School of Medicine that has conducted uninterrupted scientific research for 36 years.

Dr Orne pioneered research into demand characteristics illustrating the weakness of informing participants that they are taking part in a psychology experiment and yet expecting them to act normally.