On the Psychology of the Psychology Subject Pool

Abstract. Many psychology researches are performed through “psychology subject pools” which give participants considerable flexibility when they participate. This “participant degree-of-freedom” has led to concern that the characteristics of pool may change with time, most engaged students signing up at start semester and least leaving it all end. In this paper, we an exploratory analysis look for evidence “good student effect.” Consistent previous work, find support good effect earlier scoring higher on Big-Five subscales Achievement-Striving Cooperation, as well Grit Empathic-Concern. addition, found a non-linear time-of-semester Sensation-Seeking, measure peaking in middle However, vast majority measures tested, including personality, cognition, decision-making, social interaction, did not correlate or time-of-day all. Thus, conclude that, while some studies directly related Sensation-Seeking would do recruit throughout semester, cases any bias introduced by is likely be small.