Framing Effects on Willingness to Participate in Geolocation-Based Research

The Internet’s widespread adoption and recent technological developments have provided researchers with the opportunity to capture new data types (e.g., images, passively collected data), which offer several advantages over conventional survey data. Nevertheless, the limited participation rate in projects requiring to share such data may limit their benefits, and even their feasibility. To estimate the willingness to participate in such projects in advance, researchers frequently rely on surveys. However, the way researchers describe what data should be shared and how, and the phrasing of questions asked to participants to obtain their agreement may result in different estimates. This study presents the results of a conjoint experiment that estimates the hypothetical willingness of participants to engage in two research activities that require sharing geolocation data. Three different descriptions of the activities were presented to participants: a neutral one, one emphasizing the necessity to commit to participate, and one emphasizing safe handling of shared data. The three descriptions elicited different levels of willingness, with a maximum effect of 7.0 percentage points (statistically significant). Additionally, the importance given by participants to the attributes of the activities (e.g., project duration or incentives) differed depending on the description. Notably, the description that emphasized data safety produced lower levels of willingness compared to the neutral one. This suggests that researchers should avoid overly emphasizing safety assurances when requesting the sharing of sensitive data, beyond the necessary information required for obtaining informed consent from participants.