An Investigation of Personality Traits and Intervention Scenarios

This project is being undertaken as part of PhD research through the University of Southern Queensland.

The purpose of this project is to better understand how individual differences in personality can contribute to perceptions of dangerous situations. You will be asked to read vignettes about various situations with differing severity levels that may be confronting and respond to questions on your perception of them. By conducting this research, we aim to better understand what factors (e.g. personality) can help explain why people react different to varying situations. The personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism) are subclinical and the measures used are nondiagnostic.

Your voluntary participation will involve completing an anonymous online questionnaire that could take up to 15-25 minutes of your time.

You will be asked questions related to your personality (e.g. ‘I love it when a tricky plan succeeds’, ‘I can dominate others using fear’), and to respond to various danger level vignette scenarios. These can vary in danger level and some may be confronting, examples such as ‘A waiter in a small restaurant drops a tray of drinks. A couple of customers look up but no one helps clean up.’ Or ‘At a late-night bus stop, a man begins shouting and pulls what looks like a knife from his coat. A couple of people freeze, unsure what to do.’ You will not be judged on your responses and beliefs.

Your participation in this project is entirely voluntary. If you do not wish to take part, you are not obliged to. If you decide to take part and later change your mind, you are free to withdraw from the project at any stage during data collection by closing your browser window. Please note, you will be unable to withdraw your anonymous, amalgamated data after you have participated in the questionnaire.

Your decision whether you take part, do not take part, or to take part and then withdraw, will in no way impact your current or future relationship with the University of Southern Queensland.

It is expected that participation in this project will not directly benefit you. However, it will help us to better understand the individual differences in responses to dangerous situations and what factors mediate that response. The findings of this project may help uncover what factors facilitate an individual’s response and how understanding these variables may aid in real world interventions.

At the completion of the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter the prize draw to win an electronic gift card valued at $100AUD. If you choose to enter the prize draw, you will be directed to another survey to enter your email address. Your email address will not be linked with your anonymous survey data and this data will be stored confidentially. Notification will occur via the provided email address in the form of an electronic gift card.

In participating in the questionnaire there are minimal risks such as inconvenience (of your time), social (feeling you need to participate in this study), and psychological (becoming uncomfortable or distressed by the questions asked).

To minimise these risks, you can take this survey at a time and location that is suitable to you. Participating in this project is entirely voluntary and your responses are anonymous, therefore, the research team will be unaware of who has (or who has not) completed the survey. You can also withdraw from the study at any time during your participation, up until the time when the questionnaire is submitted.

Sometimes thinking about the sorts of issues raised in the questionnaire can create some uncomfortable or distressing feelings. If you need to talk to someone about this immediately, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or if your outside Australia, you can access supports via https://checkpointorg.com/global/. You may also wish to see your General Practitioner (GP) or go to your local hospital for additional support.

All comments and responses are confidential unless required by law.

The names of individual persons are not required in any of the responses.

There is a potential that this data may be utilised by the research team and/or other researchers in future projects. The amalgamated, anonymous data will also be uploaded to an online data-sharing repository (e.g., Figshare).

If participants wish to obtain a summary of the project results, they can contact the Principal Supervisor, AProf Jessica Marrington. Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data Management policy.

Clicking on the ‘Submit’ button at the conclusion of the questionnaire is accepted as an indication of your consent to participate in this project.

Please refer to the Research team contact details at the top of the form to have any questions answered or to request further information about this project.

If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project, you may contact the University of Southern Queensland, Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics on +61 7 4631 2321 or email researchintegrity@unisq.edu.au. The Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics is not connected with the research project and can address your concern in an unbiased manner.

UniSQHREC Approval Number- ETH2025-0425

PS: SurveyCircle users receive points for their participation, which can be used to recruit free survey participants at SurveyCircle.com

P.S: This survey contains Karma to get free survey responses at SurveySwap.io

Thank you for taking the time to help with this research project. Please keep this document for your information.