Participant Information
Decision Making study
Welcome, before starting the experiment, please read the following information:
This study is being conducted by Dr. Kadi Tulver and Dr. Marc-LluÃs Vives Moya of the Department of Psychology at Leiden University and has been approved by the Psychology Research Ethics Committee of Leiden University (2025-11-13-M.L. Vives Moya-V1-6440).
Purpose of the study
In this study, we investigate how people experience “aha†moments during everyday thinking and decision-making. We examine how insight relates to generating ideas, forming arguments, exploring creative options, and making choices. By studying different types of reasoning and idea generation, we aim to understand how insight arises, how it influences beliefs and decisions, and how individuals vary in their tendency to think creatively.’
Participation
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. This means that you can end your participation at any time and without any explanation. This will not have any detrimental consequences for you. However, if you end the study prematurely, we will not be able to compensate you for your investment.
Procedure
The study is conducted online and takes approximately one hour to complete. You will complete four short tasks involving reasoning, idea generation, and creativity, as well as fill in a questionnaire at the end of the study. Depending on the task, you will be asked to:
- Generate arguments for or against everyday issues.
- List options or ideas for simple everyday scenarios, or uses for everyday items. During all tasks, you are asked to indicate via button press whenever you experience a moment of insight (“aha momentâ€). After generating ideas or arguments, you may also be asked to choose one option and rate your satisfaction with it.
Benefits and risks
There are no known risks associated with participation in this study. All stimuli and procedures are harmless. You may experience minor fatigue or boredom from repeated ratings, but no significant discomfort is anticipated. The questionnaires used in this study are brief and non-intrusive. They will mainly include questions about how you generally respond to uncertain situations (for example, how comfortable you feel when outcomes are unpredictable). None of the questions ask about traumatic or highly personal experiences.
Compensation
The compensation for participating in this study is at a standard rate of € 7,50.
Confidentiality and privacy
All your data will be handled with strict confidentiality. We will collect your responses together with demographic information.
How do we protect your privacy? All data is saved pseudonymously, linked to your ProlificID on the Prolific platform. The data we store, process, or publish will be made fully anonymous, and no one will be able to link the data to you personally.
We store the anonymous data for at least 10 years. For the sake of transparency and open science, your anonymous/de-identified data will be made available to other interested researchers via accessible data repositories.
Can you withdraw your consent for the use of your data? You can take back your consent for the use, storage, and publishing of your data within two weeks after your participation has ended. For more information on data privacy and your rights, please check the European Union’s data privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPRâ€).
Contact information
If you have any questions before or after participating in this study, you can contact the principal investigator: Dr. Marc-LluÃs Vives Moya at m.l.vives.moya@fsw.leidenuniv.nl You can also contact the (principal) investigator if you have a complaint. If you prefer not to do so, you can contact the Contact point for research participants at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Leiden University: Contactpuntparticipanten@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
If you have any questions or complaints about your privacy or the processing of your personal data, you can contact the privacy officer of Leiden University: privacy@bb.leidenuniv.nl
Consent to participate
Please read the information below carefully.
- I have read the information letter.
- I had enough time to decide if I wanted to take part.
- I know who to contact in case of any complaints.
- I know that taking part is voluntary. I also know that I can decide at any time not to take part in the study or to stop taking part in it. I do not have to explain why, and stopping will not have negative consequences for me. I understand I will not be compensated for my time investment if I stop the study prematurely.
- I know that the research data will be safely stored (coded or anonymized) for at least 10 years.
- I understand that my fully anonymous/de-identified data may be made publicly available in an online data repository in accordance with open-science guidelines. This data cannot be linked back to me.
