Increasing Volunteer Representativeness by Recruiting for Credit or Pay

Bibliographic Data

ID10124326
AuthorsMazie Earle Wagner (Case Western Reserve University, corresponding author), Daniel S P Schubert, Daniel Schubert (0000-0003-2390-0733, Case Western Reserve University)
Year1976
Volume94
Issue1
Pages85-91
Publication date1976-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of General Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-1309 • E-ISSN: 1940-0888
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00221309.1976.9711593
OpenAlexW2079145219
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited11

It was hypothesized that recruiting for pay or college credit would considerably increase the similarity of volunteers to their parent populations (and to nonvolunteers) in intellectual ability and personality. For the testing of this hypothesis, volunteers for research-participation were recruited from introductory psychology classes by the instructor, with class credit as a reward: 68 volunteered, 34 did not. Comparisons were made for academic ability and achievement and for “MMPI personality.” In a second experiment women were recruited by the orientation testing administrator for a three-hour paid experiment: 123 volunteered, 318 did not. Of the 123 volunteers, 29, who took tests in a manner identical to the non-volunteers, were compared for “MMPI personality.” Differences did not exceed chance expectations for either group comparison. It is concluded that tangible rewards considerably increase the representativeness of volunteers for psychological experiments, since the selection is on other than the rewards of sheer “volunteerism.”

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory · Personality · Representativeness heuristic · Similarity (geometry · Applied Psychology · Clinical Psychology · Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Psychology · Social Psychology

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