Rights & Responsibilities
Important New Reimbursement Information
Paying participants for services requires documentation of tax information and is an IRS rule. Exceptions to this rule may be made if the payment is below the amount of $25.00. Higher payments per participant require tax data to be kept and provided for audit and tax reporting purposes (¤61(a)). For both in-lab and online studies, participants may be asked to provide personal information including your Social Security Number (SSN). This information is kept private and secure and used only for tax reporting purposes. We recognize that some participants might not feel comfortable submitting such information by email and so alternatives are available.
Responsibilities
Our studies pay extremely well—often $15 to $20 per hour or more. In return for this good pay, we expect several things from you as a research participant. If you fail to fulfill your responsibilities, then we may have to remove you from our program (see more about this under rights, below). Your responsibilities include the following:
- Know what studies you have already done.
- Do any given study only once.
- Do not do a study if your prior participation in another study disqualifies you.
- If you can't make a study session, use the Experimentrak system to cancel your registration at least one hour before the study begins. More than 3 no-shows is grounds for removal.
- Arrive on time for your study.
- Do not reveal details of any study you have done to any other potential participant.
- Do not solicit details of any study from other participants.
- Do not do too many studies. This is not a regular job. Treat it as an occasional activity. If you do too many studies, you lose some of the "freshness" as a study participant that makes your responses so helpful, and we may limit your participation in future studies.
- If you are already a psychology, marketing, or OB graduate student or research assistant, please do not participate in our studies.
- Check your e-mail before coming to your session. All cancellations and changes will be announced by e-mail.
- Do not try to do a study for which you have not signed up on Experimentrak.
Remember, if you are part of the Stanford community, your participation in the Behavioral Lab and Experimentrak fall under the Stanford Honor Code. Please conduct yourself accordingly.
Rights
We are committed to treating you ethically and respectfully. A few of the things that you should expect from us are:
- Cancelling in a timely manner. Occasionally a study session must be cancelled after you have registered, perhaps because the experimenter is ill. In this case, we should cancel at least 1 hour in advance. Please note that you'll be notified by e-mail of cancellations.
- Paying you for short-notice or no cancellation. If we cancel less than 1 hour out, or fail to cancel and there is no session, then you should receive some pay for your trouble in attending. Note that you may not receive the full pay for the session ($5 is reasonable). Also, if there was a misunderstanding, if you came at the wrong time, or if the study was properly cancelled and you simply didn't realize it, then you are not owed pay.
- Obtaining your written, informed consent before beginning a study.
- Treating you like a person of worth during the study.
- Giving you information about the study at the end.
- Answering questions that you have about the study.
- Due process: If we believe that you have violated your responsibilities as a participant, we will notify you by e-mail and give you a warning that you have been found in violation. If the infraction occurs again, then you will be removed Experimentrak. Please note that we make these decisions not based on what you intended to do, but on your behavior. Therefore, even if you had a good reason for either infraction, you will still be removed if a second infraction occurs. You will not be removed from our program without this process.
