Ad-justing Results: How Recruitment Ads Shape Participant Characteristics and Study Outcomes

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Avila Patro, Gabriella

Date

2024-10-15

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thesis

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Recruitment , Replication , Research Methods , Metascience

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Abstract

The field of Social Psychology is experiencing a replication crisis and researchers often do not consider how their methods could influence their results. I proposed that features of recruitment ads can alter the characteristics of a sample being used which can then influence results. Study One focused on highlighting incentives in recruitment ads (i.e., features of intrinsic motivation like enjoyment vs. features of extrinsic motivation like cash), while Study Two focused on the specificity of the content and its description in the ads (i.e., detailed vs. generic). In each study, first-year psychology students were randomly assigned to a recruitment ad. They completed measures of relevant participant characteristics that I hypothesized would differ across the ads and then completed measures from previous effects found in the literature. Across both studies, results were inconsistent. In Study One, ad type did not produce different characteristics. While it did moderate one previous effect, most of them were not moderated by ad type; although they were mostly in the expected direction and trended towards significance. In Study Two, recruitment ads produced some differences in participant characteristics. Only one effect was moderated by ad type, although others were in the expected direction and approached significance. I conclude by discussing the limitations to my studies and future directions.

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