Terms and conditions

Last updated: 18.01.2024

Studies in the laboratory

The experiments take place in a laboratory within the buildings of the Psychological Institute, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) or the University Hospital Zurich USZ. The following rules apply:

For each study, a certain number of registered persons receive an invitation by e-mail. Only invited persons are authorized to participate in the study.
The invitation contains all relevant information on the content and conduct of the study, as well as contact information for those responsible for the study.
For informed consent, information about data protection and any ethics committee approvals is provided at the start of a study.
Interested study participants can use the link in the e-mail to register directly in the system for a specific date. This registration is a binding commitment to participate in this study.
People who have registered to take part in the study will be contacted by e-mail and reminded of upcoming participation dates. If you decide to register a cell phone number, reminder text messages will also be sent. In some cases, the e-mail address or cell phone number will be processed by third-party systems for message delivery, but not stored.
Participants may receive different compensation for their participation, which will be defined by the study management (e.g. amount in CHF, participation in a prize draw).
Participants who have registered for a particular study and do not show up or show up too late must be aware of the fact that they are jeopardizing the conduct of the study due to a lack of participants. Therefore, persons who do not show up without a valid reason may be excluded from future studies.

Online studies

You will find a direct link to the survey in the invitation e-mail. The following rules apply:

For each study, a certain number of registered persons receive an invitation by e-mail. Only invited persons are authorized to participate in the study; forwarding the survey link is only permitted if this is explicitly requested in the corresponding study description.
The invitation contains all relevant information on the content and conduct of the study, as well as contact information for those responsible for the study.
For informed consent, information about data protection and any ethics committee approvals is provided at the start of a study.
Participants may receive different compensation for their participation, which will be defined by the study management (e.g. amount in CHF, participation in a prize draw).

PSYCH-Pool: Rights and obligations of interested study participants

Interested study participants are persons whose contact details and other information are stored in the PSYCH pool so that they can be asked to participate in individual studies. The following rights and obligations apply to these persons:

Each person in the PSYCH pool has a personal, password-protected profile in the pool, from which he or she can be seen what data is stored about the person. By opening such a profile, you give your consent to be contacted for specific individual studies.
You are obliged to provide truthful information about yourself for the creation of the profile.
To ensure data security, you must not share your access data for your profile with third parties.
You can pause your account at any time so that you do not receive any further study invitations.
Participation places for individual studies are limited; there is no right to participate in a specific individual study.
Your identification data (name, email address) may only be used by researchers at the cantonal universities (UZH, ZHAW, ZHdK, PHZH) of ETH Zurich and the University Hospital Zurich for the following purposes:
- to check the attendance or non-attendance of registered participants at studies
- to determine participation in previous studies
Your data stored in this database remains separate from the data collected in the individual studies.
The data collected in the individual studies are scientifically analyzed by the researchers of the respective institute and are not stored on this platform. The respective study director is responsible for processing the data in accordance with data protection regulations and informing you about this.
If you are of the opinion that the researchers (persons who have requested the study participants for individual studies) have committed breaches of duty with regard to the above-mentioned points, you can contact the operator of the PSYCH-Pool (forschung@psychologie.uzh.ch).
If you believe that the operators of the PSYCH Pool have committed breaches of duty with regard to the above points, you can contact the operator of the Z-Pool-Tool technology platform (z-pool-tool@dsi.uzh.ch).
If you commit breaches of the above-mentioned obligations or if other reasons arise that are incompatible with participation in the PSYCH pool, the operator of the PSYCH pool may exclude the person from the pool. They would then receive no further invitations and the person's pool profile would be deleted. The pool profile will also be deleted if the person's contact information is out of date and it is therefore no longer possible to contact them.

PSYCH Pool: Rights and obligations of researchers

Researchers are persons who use the PSYCH-Pool to request interested study participants for their individual studies. The contact details and other information of researchers are also stored in the PSYCH Pool under the corresponding category so that they can be contacted by the operators of the PSYCH Pool to process their request for individual studies. The following rights and obligations apply to these persons:

Each person in the PSYCH Pool has a personal, password-protected profile in the Pool, from which it can be seen what data is stored about the person. By opening such a profile, you give your consent for your data to be processed for the handling of your study requests.
You are obliged to provide truthful information about yourself for the creation of the profile.
You provide the following information for the assessment of the application to use the pool for an individual study:
- Name, address, institution affiliation and contact details (e-mail and telephone).
- Project title and description
You comply with the rules for handling the data of the persons recruited for your study (see “Rights and obligations of interested study participants”). In particular, this includes (adapted to the specific circumstances of the study) providing appropriate, ethical and legally compliant information about the research project to the persons invited to participate in the study and handling the data obtained in accordance with data protection law. They may not use for any other purpose or pass on personal data of study participants to third parties outside the context of the study.
You may use the PSYCH pool in accordance with the pool operator; the relevant services are described on the pool’s website and on the website of the Z-Pool-Tool technology platform (https://www.dsi.uzh.ch/en/research/projects/strategic/z-pool-tool.html).
If you notice breaches of duty by study participants who have registered for your study (in particular unexcused absences), please inform the operator of the PSYCH pool accordingly (forschung@psychologie.uzh.ch).
If you are of the opinion that the operators of the PSYCH pool are committing breaches of duty with regard to the legally compliant operation of the PSYCH pool, you can contact the operators of the Z-Pool-Tool technology platform (z-pool-tool@dsi.uzh.ch).

Furthermore, the general data protection regulations of the University of Zurich and the Canton of Zurich (apply https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/en/privacy.html)

If you have any questions, please contact: forschung@psychologie.uzh.ch