You are invited to participate in a study that is being conducted by Stephanie Spielmann (PhD student) and Dr. Geoff MacDonald (Associate Professor) of the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto. Your participation is entirely voluntary: you may stop the experiment at any time and you have the right to refuse to answer any question without penalty. Anyone who withdraws from the study prior to its completion or asks to have their responses deleted will still receive compensation.

By selecting below to proceed to the study you indicate that you understand, and agree with, the following points:

1) The purpose of this research is to examine people’s thoughts and feelings about themselves and their social and romantic relationships.

2) The procedure will be as follows. During a single session lasting less than 30 minutes, you will be asked to complete a series of questionnaires about yourself and your feelings about friendships and romantic relationships.

3) Because the questionnaires ask you to think in some depth about yourself and your feelings about relationships, it is possible that you may experience strong feelings and some emotional discomfort when answering some questions.

4) The benefits of participating in this study are: (a) insight into yourself and relationships, (b) a greater understanding of social psychological research, and (c) entrance into a draw for a $50 CAD gift certificate to Amazon.com to be conducted by January 15th, 2010.

5) The data you provide will be confidential and will not be released in any individually identifiable form. All data will be coded by participant number rather than by name. Data will be stored on computers in a locked and secure location and made available only to Stephanie Spielmann, Dr. MacDonald, and researchers working under their supervision. Data will be retained for 5 years.

6) The results of this research may be published in a scholarly publication and/or reported in a scientific presentation, in which case, the identity of all participants will remain fully confidential.

7) If you have any questions or concerns, Stephanie Spielmann or Dr. Geoff MacDonald will be happy to address them. Please email socialresearch@psych.utoronto.ca or call 416-978-3210.

8) Upon completion of the study session, you will receive a full written explanation of the rationale and predictions underlying this experiment. We encourage you to print a copy of this consent and debriefing form for your records.

9) If you are interested in receiving feedback about the study results, please contact Stephanie Spielmann (socialresearch@psych.utoronto.ca) after January 15, 2010. However, please note that we will only provide aggregated data (group means), not individualized results.

10) If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, or would like to speak with someone not directly involved in the study, please feel free to contact the Ethics Research Office at the University of Toronto (ethics.review@utoronto.ca, 416-946-3273).