Welcome to the Social Deduction Game!

This is a scientific study being carried out by the UK Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology.

This study will last approximately 20 minutes and offers up to £10 in payment and £5 in bonuses. It involves the following tasks and approximate time required:

• Consent (2 min)
• Pre-Survey (5-10 min)
• Game Instructions (5 min)
• Matchmaking (5 min)
• Chat with another participant (10 minutes)
• Post-study Questionnaire (8 questions, 2 minutes)

Do you want to participate?

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Warning

Before we begin, here are a few important details:

1. Do not refresh the page or use the back button. This will cause the study to end prematurely.
2. If you end the study prematurely, you will generally be able to resume where you left off, though you may have to restart a survey if that is where you left off.
3. However, you will not be paid or be able to resume the study if you end the study during the chat task.
4. If your chat partner ends the study prematurely, you will be compensated for your time.
5. If you experience errors or need support, use the Prolific help system to reach out to the research team.

Continue to the Study

Welcome to the Social Deduction Game!

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Welcome to the Social Deduction Game!

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Welcome to the Social Deduction Game!

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Welcome to the Social Deduction Game!

Thank you for participating in our study!

In a moment, you will be sent to a virtual waiting room and matched with another participant. You may have to wait for up to five minutes before being matched. If no matches are found, you may end the study and collect £4. However, you may opt to wait again and participate. Once you are matched, you and your partner will be sent to the Deception Game to participate together. Do not refresh your browser or use the back button as it will stop the study. If you do, you will have to restart (however, your data has been saved and you will return to the place you left off).

Gameplay Mechanics

During the game, you will chat with one other player.

The chat will last approximately 10 minutes. After that, there will be a short debrief and questionnaire lasting roughly 5 minutes.

Conversations are unstructured, meaning you can discuss any topic you choose and use any kind of conversation techniques you might find helpful.

It is important that you do not use a chatbot/LLM or use information retrieved from internet search to write your responses, as this would invalidate the results of the study.

Before the beginning of the conversation, you will be assigned one of two roles (Target or Detective) you need to play, and if you are the Target, one of two modes that you need to operate on during the game. Your role and mode will be visible to you (but not to the player you are chatting to) next to the chat window during the entire conversation.

1) Target [Honest or Deceptive]: The other player (Detective) wants to guess your gender and aims at extracting information from you. You are additionally asked to operate in one of two modes:

• Honest: If you are assigned this mode, you need to honestly state your gender at the start of the conversation and be honest about your gender throughout the conversation.
• Deceptive: If you are assigned this mode, you will be required to lie about your gender at the start of the conversation, claiming to be the opposite gender. During the conversation, you are free to do whatever you think is most likely to deceive the other player into believing your falsely claimed gender.

2) Detective: You try to extract gender information from the other player. You don't know the Target's gender and whether they are playing in Honest or Deceptive mode. Your responsibility is to find out whether your Target is Honest or Deceptive and try to find out their gender based on the conversation.

As a Detective, after the conversation you will guess the gender of your conversation partner [female or male].

As Target, we do not ask you to guess the other player's gender.

Game Outcomes

Collaborative Scenario (Target is Honest):

• If the Detective correctly identifies the Target's gender, both players earn a bonus of £4.
• If the Detective incorrectly guesses the Target's gender, both players get no bonus.

Adversarial Scenario (Target is Deceptive):

• If the Detective correctly identifies the Target's gender, the Detective earns a bonus of £4, and the Target gets no bonus.
• If the Detective guesses incorrectly, the Target earns a bonus of £4, and the Detective gets no bonus.

Understanding Your Role:

Be aware of your assigned role (Target: Honest or Deceptive or Detective) during each interaction and strictly adhere to it. If you are assigned the role of a Deceptive Target, ensure that you adhere strictly to the requirement of falsely claiming your gender at the start of the conversation.

Behavioral Conduct:

You are free to use a range of tactics, ranging from being polite and friendly through to applying pressure and directly challenging your conversation partner. However, please use appropriate language throughout the interaction. Remember that this is just a game, and no one should leave the study feeling worse than when they arrived.

Final Reminders:

Engage fully with each conversation to help us gather meaningful data. Maintain your assigned role and mode of operation. Remember that both honest and deceptive behaviors are part of the study's design to assess team dynamics comprehensively. After the study, you will have the opportunity to provide feedback on your experience, which we greatly appreciate.

Thank you for your time and valuable contribution to our research!