Volunteer’s Dilemma: Cooperation for Public Goods during Covid-19

Thank you for your interest in this study!

What is this study about and who is running it?

This study is about how people make decisions regarding if decisions to volunteer in group situations relate to vaccine attitudes. It's being conducted by Amelia Brown as an Honours Research Project with the School of Psychology & Neuroscience and the School of Economics & Finances at the University of St Andrews.

Do I have to take part?

No - it's up to you to decide. This information is to help you decide if you would like to take part. If you do take part, you will be free to withdraw at any time up until the time slot signed up for. As the experiment is performed online in groups, it is important to only sign up if you are able and willing to show up and complete the game.

How long does it take to complete?

About 60 minutes total.

What does it involve?

The game will involve making a decision about whether or not to volunteer your tokens to the group. Volunteering the tokens loses them for the volunteer, but the entire group gains a certain amount if at least one member volunteers. If no one volunteers, then no one gains or loses anything. This decision will be repeated multiple times, and then a short demographics questionnaire will end the experiment.

Will my participation be confidential?

Your participation will be recorded on the participant recruiting system ORSEE. This is to ensure that similar experiments are not biased by participants who are not naive to a game or method.

Will my answers be anonymous?

We will record your ORSEE ID so that we can confirm your participation and make sure you receive your reward. However, we the researchers will not have access to any of your personal data (such as your name) held by ORSEE, so it would be impossible for us to link responses to specific individuals. This means that while ORSEE will know that you participated without knowing your responses, we the researchers will know about your responses without having access to your personal data. The participant numbers will be deleted from the dataset during processing making the data completely anonymous, which means no-one, including the researchers, could use any reasonably available means to identify you from the data.

Can I withdraw my data?

As the data collection is anonymous, you will not be able to withdraw it once the experimental session is over. If you close the browser during the study, then partial data will be kept.

Are there any risks?

This study includes interacting with material concerning the present pandemic and vaccine attitudes, which may cause mild distress and/or increased anxiety to some. If you feel that you would be adversely affected by these subjects, please contact us before continuing participation.

What should I do if I have concerns about this study?

In the first instance you are encouraged to raise your concerns with the researcher and if you do not feel comfortable doing so, then you should contact my supervisors. A full outline of the procedures governed by the University Teaching and Research Ethics Committee is available at http://www.st- andrews.ac.uk/utrec/Guidelines/complaints/

Contact details

Researcher Amelia Brown (ab430@st-andrews.ac.uk)

Supervisors: Manon Schweinfurth (ms397@st-andrews.ac.uk) & Luca Savorelli (Luca.savorelli@st-andrews.ac.uk)