The task is designed so that I may measure the rate of rejection of influence by the participant towards her partner under different experimental conditions. I am looking for the causes of collective validation in groups with more than two people. By controlling whether partners agree or disagree on a solution, I can look to see whether the subjects either copy one partner's deference toward another, or if they pressure a stubborn partner to go along with the other. Students who complete a recruitment form are then called and scheduled at their convenience to come to the Center to participate in the study. Once there, a research assistant leads the participant through the experiment.
All participants are also debriefed and compensated for their participation.
Will I know for a fact that they do. Many of our studies involve some level of deception, so we have to spend a good amount of time debriefing participants so that they achieve a full understanding of the study and its purposes. I've had many subjects become enthusiastic during debriefing sessions. They ask questions about the research, they ask me about how I became interested in sociology, they speculate on how what they've just done might relate to something going on in the world or their lives, and things like that. I think it's our responsibility to design debriefing sessions so that we maximize the number of people who leave our laboratory with something positive besides money alone.