Subject Recruitment Incentives, Personality Factors, and Attitudes toward Experimentation in a Simultaneous Intentional-Incidental Learning Task

Summary Ss were 134 male and female undergraduates. Three methods of S recruitment——volunteer, paid, and required——were compared with S attitudes toward participation in an intentional-incidental learning task. Comparisons between S attitudes toward the experimentation, learning task performance, locus of control, and other-direction were also made. Volunteers were significantly more hostile toward the experimentation than required or paid groups. Ss performing above the median in the incidental task had significantly more positive attitudes than Ss lower in incidental task performance. Other comparisons were nonsignificant. However, further investigation using two factor derived subscales of the attitudes toward experimentation questionnaire revealed significant differences by locus of control, performance, and recruitment.