Study for consensual non-monogamists: Participants wanted!

tylerburleigh

New member
Hi folks,

My name is Tyler Burleigh.

I’m a PhD student doing some research on how consensually non-monogamous individuals evaluate relationships using partial information. I’m looking for consensually non-monogamous individuals (e.g., swingers, people in open relationships, polyamorists) to participate in a brief (10 min.) online study.

If you participate, you will be asked to read statements describing relationships involving two or more individuals, and then asked to answer questions about each relationship using your own best judgment. You will also be asked some personal questions, such as your age, sex, relationship status, and relationship orientation.

In return for your participation, you will have the option of entering into a draw for a $50 cash prize (odds of winning, 1:100).

Thank you for your time! Below you will find a link to the study, and a copy of the certificate of approval from my Research Ethics Board.

Link to Study

Certificate of Approval (PDF)
 
Sorry, I tried your survey.

I exited after about a dozen questions.
The responses required that I make judgments based on knowledge not available from the turned over card/cards.

Perhaps the responses you are looking for are not what I would be prepared to give based on the available information.
 
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Summary of findings

Hi folks,

It's me again. :)

Thanks to everyone who participated in the research study.

JaneQSmythe asked that I come back to share my research findings, so here I am.

In a few weeks, I will be attending a conference where I will be presenting my research, and I have prepared a poster that summarizes my findings that I would like to share with you. Here is a PDF version: http://www.tylerjohnburleigh.com/ISJR Poster - CNM Fairness and ZS Love.pdf (Note: Adobe Acrobat is recommended for viewing it).

Happy to answer any questions.

Tyler
 
Thank you for coming back with the results! Appreciate!
 
One thing that surprised me was the extent to which monogamous individuals' love judgments explained their judgments of fairness. We found full mediation, which means love judgments perfectly explained fairness judgments. Of course, this doesn't mean that all fairness/moral judgments come down to perceptions about love, since there are many variables we didn't include in the model (and replication would also be necessary with different samples, etc etc..). But it's a pretty strong finding nonetheless and that surprised me!

Oh, I almost forgot! I should also share with you a supplemental finding:
http://tylerjohnburleigh.com/Supplemental.pdf (Again, Adobe Acrobat is recommended).

This gives important context to the differences between monogamous and CNM folks' ratings. Basically, in social psychology, whenever you look at ingroup/outgroup perceptions, you have to ask whether inter-group differences in judgment are due to ingroup favouritism (i.e., "our group is right/good"), outgroup negativity (i.e., "their group is wrong/bad"), or both.

So what's interesting here is that while CNM folks rated the CNM vignettes higher than the monogamous vignettes, it was not because they rated the monogamous vignettes as particularly negative, which suggests that CNM did not show outgroup negativity, but only ingroup favouritism. However, when you look at monogamous folks, many of them gave low ratings of the CNM vignettes, which suggests that they showed both ingroup favouritism AND outgroup negativity.

It is not particularly surprising that there are monogamous individuals who perceive CNM folks negatively (in fact, this is further evidence of our hypothesis). However, it is surprising that CNM folks didn't also show outgroup negativity.

Taking off my researcher hat for a moment, I like to think that this lack of negativity is due to CNM folks' understanding and beliefs about relationships -- that perhaps there is no such thing as a "wrong" relationship between two consenting adults. But that's just my opinion. :)
 
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Thanks for sharing your findings!

...Taking off my researcher hat for a moment, I like to think that this lack of negativity is due to CNM folks' understanding and beliefs about relationships -- that perhaps there is no such thing as a "wrong" relationship between two consenting adults. But that's just my opinion. :)

I suspect you are correct in your opinion here. Most poly people are familiar with monogamous relationships and may have tried them. Since mono relationships are far more common we all have seen "successful" examples even if it is not the right choice for us personally. Poly is "different" - many mono people will never have seen a "successful" example, therefore different=bad.

JaneQ
 
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