CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH

(Person-Activity Fit for Online Happiness Practices)
CPHS #2019-09-12510

Key Information

• You are being invited to participate in research about online happiness practices. Participation in research is completely voluntary and both the Pathway to Happiness and Big Joy Project programs are freely available regardless of research participation.

• The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of engaging with online happiness practices.

• The Pathway to Happiness program runs for 4 weeks and the Big Joy Project runs for 7 days. Both programs ask you to fill out a survey at the start, do a series of activities or practices (either each week or daily), answer questions about your experiences, and fill out another survey at the end of the program.

• Risks and/or discomforts may include the risk breach of confidentiality. There is a risk of being upset at the results of the program.

• There are no direct, proven benefits to participating. However, we hope that results will advance scientific understanding of the potential for online happiness practices to increase happiness.

Introduction

My name is Professor Dacher Keltner. I am a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, in the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology. I am planning to conduct a research study, which I invite you to take part in.

We are inviting you to participate in this study because you are interested in participating in one of the Greater Good In Action (GGIA) programs: the 28-day "Pathway To Happiness" or the "Big Joy Project" on the ggia.berkeley.edu website. Your input about yourself and your experiences with these programs will contribute importantly to knowledge about the impact of participating in online happiness practices. Your input will also help guide ongoing revisions to these programs and strategic development of future programs. You must be at least 18 years of age to participate.

Purpose

The purpose of this research study is to understand the impact of engaging in online happiness practices and whether certain online happiness practices are a better "fit" for some people than others. The 28-day "Pathway to Happiness" program offers a series of four weekly practices that may influence happiness and sends you regular email and SMS/text reminders to help you stay on track. The 7-day "Big Joy Project" program offers daily practices that may influence happiness and sends you daily email and SMS/text reminders. This study will provide unprecedented quantitative insight into the potential for online happiness practices to improve happiness as well as more precise understanding of which practices work best for whom.

Procedures

The 28-day "Pathway to Happiness" program on the ggia.berkeley.edu website guides you through a series of 4 weekly science-based happiness practices. The 7-day "Big Joy Project" program on the ggia.berkeley.edu website guides you through 7 daily science-based practices. If you agree to participate in this research, you will be asked to complete a short survey at the start of each program, then be invited to try a sequence of online happiness practices. You will receive email and SMS/text reminders(4 per week for "Pathway to Happiness", 2 per day for the "Big Joy Project") to help you stay on track. At the end of each program, you will be asked to complete a second survey.

After this screen, you will see the starting survey: several questions about yourself and your circumstances that should take 3-5 minutes to answer. Then, ggia.berkeley.edu will email and text you a welcome message with instructions for what to do next. For the "Pathway to Happiness", the messages will include a link to your first happiness practice. For the "Big Joy Project", the message will confirm your enrollment, and inform you that your first practice will come the following day. Over the next four weeks for the "Pathway to Happiness" program, or 7-days for the "Big Joy Project" you will receive reminder emails and texts with instructions and links to different happiness practices. Both programs will also ask you to answer brief questions about whether you have tried the practices, and how you feel about them. The "Pathway to Happiness" will ask this once per week, and the "Big Joy Project" will ask daily. You can discontinue reminder emails and texts at any time. After you complete either the 4 weeks or 7 days, ggia.berkeley.edu will ask you to complete an exit survey. All of your survey responses, happiness practice posts, and site behavior are automatically collected by the website, including clicks, time spent on pages and emails opened. Your study data will only be included in research if you provide informed consent to participate in research.

Study time

Participation in this study involves no additional time beyond what is included in the "Pathway to Happiness" or "Big Joy Project" programs. The survey (i.e., data collection) portion of the 28-day "Pathway to Happiness" program will take a total of approximately 26 minutes (3 min at start and finish, 5 min per week). The survey portion of the "Big Joy Project" program will take a total of approximately 34 minutes (3 min at start and finish, 4 min per day) for the 28-day "Pathway to Happiness" program.

Study location

All study procedures take place online, within the ggia.berkeley.edu website.

Benefits

There are no direct benefits from participating in this research. We hope that the information gained from the study will help the scientific community better understand the potential for online happiness practices to benefit people. We also aim to use findings from this study to inform and optimize future iterations of the ggia.berkeley.edu website, practices, and programs.

Risks/Discomforts

• Breach of confidentiality: As with all research, there is a chance that confidentiality could be compromised; however, we are taking precautions to minimize this risk.

• Feelings about program "Results": The 28-day "Pathway to Happiness" and "Big Joy Project" programs show a page at the end that visually summarizes responses to questions encountered during the program. This could be upsetting to someone who expects a different outcome than what is shown. The information depicted on the "Results" pages is meant to provide motivating feedback, is not diagnostic, and does not reflect any valid or reliable qualities or characteristics of any person's mental health.

• Early Termination: You can skip or decline to answer any of the questions in the "Pathway to Happiness" or the "Big Joy Project", and you are free to stop participating in the research at any time.

Confidentiality

Your study data will be handled as confidentially as possible. If the results of this study are published or presented, no individual names or other personally identifiable information will be used.

To minimize the risks to confidentiality, we will do the following:

• Personal identifiers including names, emails and phone numbers are removed immediately upon downloading survey responses from the internet. Only this de-identified data is used in research and statistical analyses.

• De-identified data, including survey and weekly question responses, will be stored in password protected files on password-protected computers. De-identified data will be retained indefinitely. Study data could be used for future research studies or distributed to other investigators for future research studies without additional informed consent from the subject or the legally authorized representative.

• Only the Greater Good Science Center staff, UC Berkeley researchers, and institutional review board (ethics committee) approved affiliated researcher(s) will have access to your de-identified data. We will keep your study data as confidential as possible unless it includes information that we must report for legal or ethical reasons, such as child abuse, elder abuse, or intent to hurt yourself or others.

Consent for collection and use of study data:

This research will collect data about you that can identify you, referred to as Study Data.

We will obtain and create Study Data directly from you so we can properly conduct this research. As we conduct research procedures with your Study Data, new Study Data may be created.

The Research Team will collect and use the following types of Study Data for this research:

• Your name

• Your racial or ethnic origin

• Your opinions and experiences

• Information about your response to the research procedures

A computer algorithm may be used to assign you to specific happiness practices in the "Pathway to Happiness" and "Big Joy Project" programs. The practices may be assigned randomly, based on some practice characteristics or study conditions (e.g., gratitude practices or mindfulness practices). If you sign this consent form, you are consenting to the use of this automated process to select the happiness practices you receive.

This research will keep your Study Data for possible use in future research by myself or other investigators. I will retain this data indefinitely.

The following categories of individuals may receive Study Data collected or created about you:

• Members of the research team so they properly conduct the research

• UC Berkeley staff will oversee the research to see if it is conducted correctly and to protect your safety and rights

• Representatives of the U.S. Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) who oversee the research

The research team will transfer your Study Data to our research site in the United States. The United States does not have the same laws to protect your Study Data as States in the EU/EEA/UK. However, the research team is committed to protecting the confidentiality of your Study Data. Additional information about the protections we will use is included in this consent document.

The GDPR gives you rights relating to your Study Data, including the right to:

• Access, correct or withdraw your Study Data; however, the research team may need to keep Study Data as long as it is necessary to achieve the purpose of this research

• Restrict the types of activities the research team can do with your Study Data

• Object to using your Study Data for specific types of activities

• Withdraw your consent to use your Study Data for the purposes outlined in the consent form and in this document (Please understand that you may withdraw your consent to use new Study Data but Study Data already collected will continue to be used as outlined in the consent document and in this Notice)

The Regents of the University of California, on behalf of UC Berkeley, is responsible for the use of your Study Data for this research. You can contact the UCB Privacy Officer by phone at 510.664.9185 or by email at privacyoffice@berkeley.edu if you have:

• Questions about this Notice

• Complaints about the use of your Study Data

• If you want to make a request relating to the rights listed above.

Compensation/Payment

You will not be compensated for your participation in this study.

Costs

You will not be charged for any of the study activities.

Rights

Participation in research is completely voluntary. You are free to decline to take part in the study. You can decline to answer any questions and are free to stop taking part in the study at any time. Whether or not you choose to participate, to answer any particular question, or continue participating in the study, there will be no penalty to you or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You can still participate in the "Pathway to Happiness" and "Big Joy Project" programs if you choose to not participate in the research

Questions

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, you may contact Emiliana Simon-Thomas at 510- 642-2490 or ggia@berkeley.edu.

If you have any questions or concerns about your rights and treatment as a research subject, you may contact the office of UC Berkeley's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, at 510-642-7461 or subjects@berkeley.edu.

Consent

Clicking "I consent to participate in research" indicates that you have read the description of the study, you are 18 years of age or older, and agree to participate in the study. Please keep a copy of this consent form for your records.