The Four Levels Of Informed Consent Process

Informed consent. Once a participant decides to volunteer, they must read and agree to an informed consent form. The goal of this process is to provide an adequate amount of information that may influence the participant’s decision to participate or not. The consent form consists of the purpose, instructions, confidentiality, and compensation of the study (Appendix A). Overall, this establishes an agreement and assures protection for their involvement in the study. Manipulations. After consenting, participants were exposed to one of the four levels of the manipulated independent variables: high attractiveness and fired, high attractiveness and laid off, low attractiveness and fired, or low attractiveness and laid off (Appendix B). Participants were shown a photograph and instructed to read the background information of each candidate. The description included basic information about the candidate such as: name, sex, education, employment skills, recent employment, and reason for departure (of previous employment).
After reading each description, participants were asked to rate what they felt about each candidate by placing an ‘X’ on 10 pairs of adjectives (e.g. cold/warm, inefficient/efficient, and ect). The dependent variables: warmth and competence were measured on a 7-point Osgood scale (Appendix C). Next, participants were asked to rate their intentions to hire on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). They had to answer the three questions and answer them by selecting one number that best described what they felt. This scale had measured the participant’s intentions to hire the candidate they were specifically assigned to (Appendix