Journal of Psychology & Behavioral Science

Assessing the Effectiveness of Debriefing Following a Social Exclusion Paradigm
Michael B. Kitchens, Carol L. Gohm

Abstract
Researchers investigating social exclusion have identified a number of personal and interpersonal negative consequences of social exclusion. From an ethics perspective, this creates a disconcerting situation, in which participants are exposed to procedures known to have negative psychological consequences. Researchers rely on debriefing procedures to defuse any lasting negative consequences, but to our knowledge, no empirical studies have addressed the effectiveness of these procedures in the context of social exclusion research. In this paper, we report data from a survey assessing four key practical and ethical issues related to a debriefing procedure developed for social exclusion research. Specifically, we assessed (a) the emotional impact of the paradigm after debriefing (b) how effective the explanation of the purpose and use of deception was, (c) the likelihood that participants would discuss the research outside the lab, and (d) participants’ knowledge of their rights to withdraw from the study. The data show that the debriefing procedure was largely effective, but it also raises some concern regarding participants’ knowledge of their rights to withdraw their participation. The data is discussed in terms of making practical applications for researchers and ethics review boards.

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