Ethical Participation in the Study of Emotions and Moods, Social Validation, Behavior, and Self-esteem
Please keep in mind that the structure of your participant consent form and debrief sheet may differ slightly from the template given if you are undertaking a qualitative research project. As a result, you may copy and paste your supervisors' template into this page.
Please indicate each of the measures you use, as well as the mode of delivery, in the box below. For example, the Autism Spectrum Quotient administered via Qualtrics, Masked Priming task programmed in E-prime, semi-structured interview conducted in person.
Measures to be Used
The measures to be used in this context to collect data are:
- Self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965)
- Social relations (Huo, Binning & Monila, 2010)
- Big-Five Personality (Goldberg, 1992)
- Social Status Questionnaire (Mahadevan, Gregg, Sedikides & De-Waal-Andrews, 2016)
- Traits, Positive and Negative Affect Schedules and some daily measures of their self-feeling, social-relations and behaviours scales which will be administered through Qualtrics
Participants will be invited to take part in an online diary study.
Ethical Considerations
In the box below please discuss any ethical issues associated with the study and how you will deal with them. Points to be considered are participant consent and debrief, inclusion/exclusion criteria, right to withdraw, sensitive topics, risks to participants and/or researchers, dissemination and use of findings. In addition, any form of deception should be clearly detailed (outline why this is necessary and the nature of the deception - these details should also be included in the debrief form).
Participant Consent and Debrief
Participant consent will be addressed. Participants who wish to take part in this study should have an age of over 18 years, they will be required to provide current contact information, i.e., a mobile number and a working email address in order to take part in the study, and whoever doesn't wish to share the aforementioned information will be denied a chance to participate in the study. No participant will be forced to take part in the research survey. Information about the research will be shared with them. There shall be no any deception, no vulnerable participants will be involved, and sensitive topics will not be addressed. They will be required to fill a participant consent form which is also provided in this document. In the debrief part, participants will be given the whole intent of the study (University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2015). Here they will be provided with the full information of what was being tested and also the sources of support. This will be done at the end of the online survey after the participants have finished the research activity. The participants will be given contact details of the person conducting the study, the person supervising them and their head of department.
Right to Withdraw
The data to be gathered during this study will be securely kept. Participants are at will to withdraw from participation at any time they wish to, without any explanations as to why they are doing so but their data may still be used in the study in a collated form (National Centre for Biotechnology Information, 2005). Withdrawing will be done by contacting their investigator by their number of participation. There shall not be any consequences to any student who chooses to withdraw from the research study.
Sensitive Topics
The topics addressed by the research include emotions and moods, social validation, behavior, and self-esteem. The main aim is to establish the relationship between the topics addressed in the study, though it should be noted that no sensitive topics will be addressed during the study.
Risk to Participants
There will be no any risk to those who choose to participate in the study. The questions are structured in a way that they give no discomfort to participants at all the levels of the research. The information obtained from the participants will be confidential and at no moment will it be disclosed to any party whatsoever. All electronic data will be kept in protected computer files. No participant will start the survey without knowing what exactly they will be encountering during the survey (University of Wisconsin System, 2017).
Dissemination and Use of Findings
Results from the study will be used to analyze the relationship between the topics in hand. It will allow the researchers to make decisive conclusions on the research topic, and from the survey taken, the results having a higher probability to the facts they will give a report that has a close relation to the existing facts (National Centre for Biotechnology Information, 2017).
PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM
Title of Research Project: The relationship between emotions and moods, social validation, behavior, and self-esteem
Ethics
Reference
No: Insert details here (Supervisor provides No upon task completion)Brief Description of Research Project and What Participation Involves:
This research project aims at drawing the relationship between social validation and self-feeling especially, moods and emotions. We invite adult volunteers between 18-65 to take part in a research study being conducted as part of our research training at the Department of Psychology, Roehampton University.
This research will be undertaken by Pattamaporn Limprapakarn (Psychology students) under the supervision of Dr Nikhila Mahadevan in the Department of Psychology. It has been approved by University of Roehampton Department of Psychology Ethics Committee
Participants must be 18 years or over. They will be given with a unique ID code and will be asked to provide email and mobile number to be able to send them the links in the several time points. Participants will be asked to complete some questionnaires online through SONA which are designed to measure the relationship between social validation, moods and emotions or behaviours and self-feeling. All the information you provide will be available only to the research team, their tutors and examiners, and treated in the strictest confidence. This research is composed of an online diary study. A series of behaviour and personality questionnaires which takes about 30 minutes will first be completed. This is followed by over 10 different occasions where one is required to report on some aspect of their personality and behaviour in their daily activities. Each of the occasion will take about 10 minutes to complete.
All data gathered during this study will be held securely. You can withdraw from participation from the whole experiment or any part of it at any point without needing to justify your decision. You can also request for your data to be withdrawn at any time after participating in the study. To do this, please contact the investigator with your participant number. Please be aware. However, that data may still be used in a collated form. Finally, if you are a student who is volunteering for course credits as part of an undergraduate module, please be advised that there will be no adverse consequences about assessment for your degree if you decide to withdraw.
It should also be noted that there are no right or wrong answers and that no sensitive topics will be addressed. There are no risks to taking part beyond those associated with daily living (e.g., reading the newspaper).
Consent Statement:
I agree to take part in this research ☐
I have read and understood the information provided ☐
I am aware that I am free to withdraw at any point without giving a
reason, although if I do so I understand that my data might still be
used in a collated form. ☐
I understand that the information I provide will be treated in
confidence by the investigator and that my identity will be protected
in the publication of any findings, and that data will be collected
and processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998
and with the University’s Data Protection Policy. ☐
Name …………………………………………………………………….…………………………..
Signature …………………………………………………………….………………………………
Date ……………………………………………………………….………………………………….
Please note: if you have a concern about any aspect of your participation or any other queries please raise this with the investigator (or if the researcher is a student you can also contact the Director of Studies.) However, if you would like to contact an independent party please contact the Head of Department.
PARTICIPANT DEBRIEF
Participant unique identifier: __________________
Title of Research Project: The relationship between emotions and moods, social validation, behaviour, and self-esteem
Ethics Reference No: Insert details here (Supervisor provides No upon task completion)
Thank you very much for taking part in this study, we greatly appreciate your contribution. The study was designed to investigate the relationship between emotions and moods, social validation, behavior, and self-esteem in everyday life, using an online diary study method. Research that had been previously conducted prove that there is a great connection between emotional well-being, high self-esteem and being socially validated. An individual is first asked to take part in completing some general questionnaire measures of behavior and personality then report on the level of social validation they receive, self-esteem, mood, and behavior. These are obtained from a result of 10 different occasions. It is expected that individuals will act more assertively, have high moods and self-esteem during days that they receive more social validation from others. When providing the results of the study, there shall not be any information that may be used to identify the participants. Also, you are kindly asked not to share the aim of this study with anyone as this may, in turn, affect the results.
All data gathered during this study will be held securely. You can withdraw from participation from the whole experiment or any part of it at any point without needing to justify your decision. You can also request for your data to be withdrawn at any time after participation in the study. To do this, please contact the investigator with your participant number. Please be aware. However, that data may still be used in a collated form. Finally, if you are a student who is volunteering for course credits as part of an undergraduate module, please be advised that there will be no adverse consequences about assessment for your degree if you decide to withdraw.
Here below are references that have been used to shed more light on the topic at hand:
National Center for Biotechnology Information,. (2017). Disseminating research findings: what should researchers do? A systematic scoping review of conceptual frameworks. Retrieved from National Center for Biotechnology Information,: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2994786/
The University of Melbourne. (2017, August 28). Systematic Reviews. Retrieved from The University of Melbourne: http://unimelb.libguides.com/c.php?g=492361&p=3368110
University of Massachusetts Amherst. (2015, October 5). Research Administration & Compliance – Debriefing Process Guidance. Retrieved from University of Massachusetts Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/research/guidance/debriefing-process-guidance
University of Wisconsin System. (2017). Examples of Potential Risks for Human Subject Research. Retrieved from University of Wisconsin System: https://www.uwsuper.edu/irb/risks.cfm
Should you have any concern about any aspect of your participation in this study, please raise it with the investigator in the first instance, or with the Project Supervisor or Head of Psychology.
If you are a student at Roehampton University and are troubled or worried about any aspect of the study, or issues it may have raised, you may find it helpful to contact one of the following who will be able to advise you on agencies that can deal with your particular concern:
If you feel your concerns are more serious or complex, you may wish to contact the Student Medical Centre on Ext 3679, or the Health & Wellbeing service via health&[email protected]
If you are a non-student you may find it helpful to contact your GP or one of the following who will be able to advise you on agencies that can deal with your particular concern:
Samaritan
