FAQ

For directions to the BehavLab, please click here. 

The BehavLab is used by Ivey faculty who research questions in Behavioural Economics. This includes faculty from Marketing, Organizational Behavioiur, Managerial Accounting and Control, Information Systems, Entrepreneurship, as well as many other areas.  Check out some of our featured researchers.

All data collected at the BehavLab is used for academic purposes only.  The researchers are all Ivey faculty or PhD students, and they analyze the study data with the goal of publishing their research in academic papers journals or books and for presentation at academic conferences.  Unless explicitly stated in the Letter of Information you will receive for each study you take part in, the data will only ever be presented in an aggregated format and so your personal identity can never be known.  Any personal information about you and all anonymized data is stored securely by the BehavLab. All of our procedures have been vetted and approved by the Research Ethics Board at Western University prior to testing.

There is a “Forgot Password?” button on the lower right of the SONA homepage. If you’ve forgotten your username you will need to send an email to behavlab@ivey.ca with your name in order to get help retrieving this information. An email will arrive with your username and a new temporary password.

To request removal from the Paid Participant Pool, just click the “remove” link at the bottom of our emails and follow the instructions, or send an email to behavlab@ivey.ca

The only information we require is your name and your preferred email contact. You can change the email address but if you require changes to your name you will need to contact behavlab@ivey.ca to make those changes. Note that any name changes will not affect your User ID or your Identity Code.

Of course they can! We are always looking for participants for our studies.  As long as they are 18 years or over, all they need to do is click here. 

To submit the necessary information to us. Someone will get their account started up within a day or two.

You can participate any time the BehavLab is running studies and we run studies whenever classes all year long!  We are typically closed when there are no classes in session, holidays, during Reading Weeks, during exam periods, and in August.  We are open to run studies from 9am to 5pm.  Sometimes there are exceptions to this (e.g., a study that takes place somewhere else on campus or in non-business hours), but this is always made clear in the study information on SONA.

While classes are in session you will receive emails from the SONA system about new studies and new timeslots being added to SONA.  You are free to sign in to SONA at any time, and indeed we encourage you to do this, to check on study availability.

There could be many reasons why you have not received a study invitation. The lab is closed, there may be restrictions on the studies currently running that disqualifies you, your account is frozen because you were late too often and received too many Unexcused No-Shows, or we may simply not have any paid studies running right now.

There are couple of possible reasons for this.  The study may not have any available timeslots, or the timeslots may have already filled up. It’s also possible that this study has precluded participants based on previous participation.

If you need to cancel an appointment, please do so by signing in to your SONA account and cancelling it yourself.  You can usually do this up to 12 hours before the appointment time start. If you’re within this 12-hour window and need to cancel you can do this by emailing behavlab@ivey.ca.  This way someone else can sign in to take part in the study and you will not receive an Unexcused No-Show on your account.  Too many Unexcused No-Shows will result in an automatic Inactive account, and you won’t be able to sign up for further appointments until you have contacted the Lab Manager, and it will be left for her to decide if your account can be reinstated. Note that reinstated accounts will become inactive again as soon as an additional No-Show occurs.

Much like any other appointment you make, if you cannot make your appointment you need to let us know!  You can do this by either by cancelling the appointment yourself within 12 hours of the appointment start time or, if within that 12-hour window, by emailing behavlab@ivey.ca and letting us know.  You must do this before the appointment time though or the Unexcused No-Show will be added to your account. 

Most of the studies that we run in the lab, especially the large lab, Room 0388, are running multiple participants at once and require that we follow very specific instructions from our faculty researchers. This often means that we have to start at the appointed time and that we have all participants subject to the same instructions at the same time.  This means that even if you are only 2 minutes late you may find that we have begun without you and that we cannot let you start the study after we’ve closed the door. 

Whether you’re late or don’t show at all, all of the scheduled participants who are not present in the lab when we begin will receive an Unexcused No-Show on their account. 

We assign an “excused” No-Show when we have heard from a participant that they will be unable to attend their appointment and we were unable to cancel them. This permits them to sign up once again. We also sometimes assign a No-Show as excused when a participant shows up on time, but we are unable to run them in the study, but we would like to give them to opportunity to sign up again at another time.  The Excused No-Show has no ramification on your account, but the Unexcused No-Show does have consequences for your account.  You will be frozen out of the SONA system as soon as you have too many Unexcused No-Shows and you will be unable to sign up for further studies until the Lab Manager has been contacted and satisfied that you can have your account reinstated. No such penalty occurs for Excused No-Shows.

The BehavLab manager usually sends out a mass email from the SONA system to participants who are part of the pool each week that classes are running. Sometimes more often than once a week depending on scheduling.  In your account, at the bottom of the “My Profile” page you can opt in to also receive a weekly email from the SONA system itself about what studies are currently available to you based on what class you’re in, if you still require credits.  No emails will be received once you’ve completed your credits.

You cannot be credited for your participation in the Paid Participant studies. You may join the Paid Participant Pool but not until you have completed all of your credits for the Student Credit Participant Pool.

Please contact the BehavLab at behavlab@ivey.ca

The SONA system tracks participants via credits, and this is a record keeping function only; the credits have no meaningful value.

Here are some general rules that all participants must follow when taking part in research:

• Participants will not be permitted to have food or drink with them at the computer workstations. Any food or drink brought into the lab can be discarded in the garbage cans or left on a cupboard to be picked up later. No consumption of food or beverages is permitted unless it is a part of the study.
• Phones will not be permitted at the computer workstations and must be turned off or muted and kept in pockets or bags for the duration of your participation. Participants who interact with their phones at any stage during their participation may be asked to leave without payment.
• Participants are not allowed to disturb other participants.
• Participants who continue to turn up late or who fail to show up to appointments will be removed from the mailing list for the Paid Participant Pool.
• Participants must take tasks seriously and follow instructions carefully. If clarifications are required, please raise your hand when in lab and research assistants can help you.
• Do not discuss study procedures or content with other participants who are yet to take part in the same study.

No. Your friend (as long as they are 18 years or over) will need to create their own research participation account with us. If you can no longer make it to your appointment, please cancel it on SONA if it is more than 12 hours before the appointment time. If it is within the 12-hour window, then you will need to contact behavlab@ivey.ca or the assigned Research Assistant to cancel before the appointment.

Please direct all questions, concerns, or inquiries to behavlab@ivey.ca