Effect of incentives and aversiveness of treatment on willingness to participate in research. Teaching of Psychology (February

In three experiments, we studied the effect of incentives (O%, 1 %, or 5 % of grade points; $2 or $ 1 0) on wilf ngness to participate in hypothetical experiments varying in degree of awersiveness. Col-lege students read a brief description of an experiment, rated their willingness to participate, and wrote comments. Wiuingness to participate was greater with larger incentives (in two of three experiments) and was lower for more aversive treatments (in all experiments). We discuss the teacher's role in the research process. Many teachers of introductory psychology and other un-dergraduate courses serve as gatekeepers for psychological research. They allow experimenters tc * recruit subjects from their classes and may encourage participation by offering course credit. Their students often agree to take part in studies using aversive treatments involving discomfort tha