Experimental Design Details
Participants are recruited for an online study through the aforementioned Cornell University IRB approved participant recruitment system. The Lab pre-screens participants to verify their eligibility. Time slots for participants are open approximately 4-9 days before the survey is active. The lab administrator also sends an advertisement for available studies on Mondays. Approximately 3 days before the survey's participation deadline, the experimenter sends personal links for the survey to each registered participant's email. All participants read an IRB reviewed and approved online consent form; they are required to actively consent to the form and verify that they are over 18 years of age.
At the beginning of the survey, participants answer 50 questions taken from the open source International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), which are widely used to administer personality tests based on the Five-Factor Model. Participants are scored across five traits: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect. The survey generates these scores based on participants’ responses to the 50 questions and displays it to the participant in a table along with their first and last name (collected by the Lab in pre-screenings). A description of how to interpret these personality scores is also provided to the participant.
There are four conditions each participant experiences (call them T1, T2, T3, and T4). Each condition provides a different possible outcome participants face, should they choose to share their data. Each includes different information about how their data will be shared and/or what their recipient(s) will do with that data. In each scenario, there are 5 different possible prices offered for sharing data; and participants reveal whether they would accept or not accept each price for releasing their data. One of the four scenarios is selected to be made real for the participant. The survey then randomly assigns participants to one of four condition order groups. In the first group, participants experience condition order T1, T2, T3, and T4, sequentially. In a second, participants experience T2, T1, T4, and T3. In the third, participants experience T3, T4, T1, and T2. And in the last group, participants experience T4, T3, T2, and T1. The primary outcomes of interest are the revealed choices for each price (in each scenario) and how information treatments influence those decisions. In a between-subject analysis of subjects’ first decision, the second order group will be the control group. For a within subject analysis, condition T2 will be the control condition. How condition order interacts with each condition will also be analyzed support the interpretation of findings.
Exit survey includes a suite of questions about demographics, social media activity, data privacy concerns, and acceptability of various data privacy scenarios. Participants also enter a lottery to earn additional bonus money if they complete the exit survey questions. Data on time spent per question is also recorded by the survey. The experiment intends to avoid all deception, so all participant choices to share personal data and earnings outcomes are for real. Approximately one week after the participation deadline, personal data is released to randomly selected participants in an email (under the respective scenario requirements), and the Lab administrator electronically delivers Amazon gift cards with total earnings.