Running head: IMC EFECTS ON NON-DIFFERENTATION AND GRICEAN NORMS 1 It’s a Trap! The Influence of Instrumental Manipulation Checks on Response Non- Differentiation and Gricean Norm Effects

The instructional manipulation check (IMC) is a methodological tool designed to measure whether participants read the instructions in a survey, and thus, it is frequently used in online studies to identify inattentive participants. However, research on survey design has suggested that participants can infer intentions from prior questions, affecting responses to later questions. As the IMC tells participants of a communicative context wherein the experimenter intends to trick participants into giving wrong answers, this study assessed whether the simple inclusion of an IMC could lead to additional cognitive processing that subsequently reduced participants’ satisficing behaviors (Study 1), while increasing classic Gricean norm effects (Study 2). The results showed that the IMC did not affect participants’ satisficing behaviors or their responses to several of the Gricean norm effect measures, with one exception. Implications and future research areas are discussed.