Serious subjects: A test of the seriousness technique to increase participant motivation in political science experiments

Abstract

A central concern for experimental studies is participant motivation, which is crucial for internal validity. When participants are not committed to the task, internal validity diminishes because responses might not be authentic. This study introduces and tests the seriousness technique as a method for increasing participant investment in political science experiments that use student samples. The seriousness technique aims at creating a sense of responsibility by telling students that their participation is important because science needs quality data. Results from a computer-assisted foreign policy decision-making experiment show that the seriousness technique increased the degree of information participants access during the foreign policy simulation and the time they spent on the study. These findings suggest that political scientists who use student samples in their experiments can nurture serious subjects by employing the seriousness technique. It is argued that the results should be of interest not only to experimentalists but also to all scholars who use human subjects, including survey researchers, in their research.