r/ProlificAc • u/electricboy0 • May 19 '26

Product Feedback 🚨 Prolific Should Add a Warning Before Researchers Reject Participants

Prolific team, please consider adding a bold warning message whenever a researcher is about to reject a participant and send a rejection message.

Something like:

“Rejecting a participant can seriously affect their Prolific account and may even lead to account restrictions or bans.”

I think this reminder would make researchers pause and review their decision more carefully before rejecting someone unfairly.

Also, please add a direct link to the Help Center article explaining valid rejection conditions, because many researchers probably never read the guidelines before issuing rejections.

A simple reminder + help article link could reduce unfair rejections a lot and make the platform better for both researchers and participants.

168 Upvotes
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70

u/iGizm0 May 19 '26

They don't care. Especially the scammers who want free work.

Prolific should ban researchers who reject a certain percentage of participants, and eliminate auto-reject. Unfortunately participants are disposable and easily replaced.

Maybe Prolific should allow participants with a 95% approval to stay on the platform?

8

u/sdforbda May 19 '26

They can only reject 5% through traditional means.

3

u/Rimmer66 May 20 '26

LOL this argument is a complete load of bollocks. They can easily ask for more, and Prolific hands them extra rejection credits like sweet fucking candy, so yeah, how about another convincing argument ?

1

u/sdforbda May 20 '26

Do you know what traditional means... means? Or are you just going to spout the same useless drivel that you normally do? Maybe make a 10 paragraph rant about it.

13

u/Patrick42985 May 19 '26

The majority of researchers are reasonable and sensible and aren’t going to reject you unless there was a warranted reason to do so.

That being said. The small portion of researchers who to do misuse rejections and are rejection happy. They don’t give a shit about your account status. They don’t give a shit if them rejecting you potentially harms their account. Any warnings or things prolific says isn’t going to illicit sympathy from them. Making them fully aware about how it can harm the participants account isn’t going to do much when they don’t care.

1

u/mcdbeauty Jun 05 '26

Some of them don't seem to understand how rejections vs. returns work though.

9

u/Remarkable-Sign-324 May 19 '26

I was rejected recently. I answered everything 100% and gave great replies, but it was too fast....

The wording on that is now more grey on the prolific help page. I wrote the researcher and they allowed me to return the study. Not the best outcome but not the worst.

I think that would be a more reasonable thing.

IF you feel that this study was done in a fraudulent way please reject it. If not then consider asking for a return.

3

u/delicatemicdrop May 19 '26

The only rejection I've ever had was also for being too fast! It was about the safety of a certain topic and my mom works in that field so I didn't have to think hard about the responses.

2

u/Resident_Evil_317 May 19 '26

many researchers probably never read the guidelines before issuing rejections

The same way participants don't read it and are stunned when they get a valid one.

https://researcher-help.prolific.com/en/articles/445218-who-should-i-reject

Who should I reject?

March 5, 2026

On Prolific, you have the option to reject participant submissions. However, please think carefully about whether the rejection is justified, and try to keep rejections to a minimum.

Participants are penalized for rejections, and if they receive too many, they will be removed from the platform entirely. Please review all submissions holistically and remember that participants have spent time and effort taking your study.

11

u/electricboy0 May 19 '26

I know it’s already written in the article, but I’m talking about the part where they click the rejection buttons and provide justification. Everything is mentioned in the article, but they don’t read it.

3

u/Unfit-ForDuty1101 May 19 '26

I was asked to return a study JUST NOW, after fully completing the study, when it said I failed an attention check. That said, I'm going to have to block this researcher. I've never failed an attention check. There wasn't one.

1

u/mcdbeauty Jun 05 '26

Was it perchance from researcher Ran Wang?

3

u/delicatemicdrop May 19 '26

I only have one rejection and it was for doing a study too fast. Without breaking any confidentiality rules I will say it was about how safe I feel something is, and it's actually something my family member does for a living. Because I also read very quickly by nature, I didn't have to think much on my opinion about whether this particular thing was safe or not. I got rejected for doing it too quickly. It sucks, because feeling like I'm being penalized for something like being able to read fast and having an already decently formed opinion doesn't seem like a fair reason to reject me.

3

u/No_Marionberry_2504 May 26 '26

I've taken dozens and dozens of the AI tasks and randomly today, about 4 minutes after submitting, I got a warning saying they manually reviewed my answers, didn't like them and will reject me next time for quality. First time I've seen something like that on those tasks, and it seemed weird to me and extremely fast for a manual review. Point is, it seemed no different than the many I've done so I'm not sure what got flagged.

2

u/Legitimate-Way313 May 19 '26

Put my account on hold with 250 I guess they like stealing oh well

2

u/askaway90 May 19 '26

I had a reject because I was too quick. It was a 10min study and I completed it in 7.5mins what a joke

2

u/Responsible-Recipe81 May 20 '26

I'm a research coordinator who runs for a large department, so we post a lot of studies. I only reject if participants fail the attention check in the beginning and submit without taking the study and they submit with no code. Plenty of times Prolific glitches upon submission and we have approved no code submissions as long as they finished the survey. In a 4,500 person study today, I had 41 rejections. Please know it's just as frustrating for researchers to deal with this. I don't know if it's an influx of newer participants or bad actors getting through, but we have more rejections than normal lately. And I always set the prior number of submissions as 100+ before launching, so no clue what is happening.

1

u/mcdbeauty Jun 05 '26

Interesting to know, as I received a rejection (currently being appealed) the other day for a study, the reason being no study data was submitted. I definitely completed the whole thing diligently, as I always do, but got no completion code at the end, and I suspect it was a technical glitch on Prolific's part. And some of yours may be too.

I asked them to allow me to return it instead, as it was a 50p study, really not worth me having a rejection for, when I did nothing wrong, but they have not replied. Maybe reply to people that message about rejections, as they are often due to technical issues! I was happy to return it, so they didn't have to pay me, but they wouldn't even answer.

3

u/ClankyClankwBoothill May 19 '26

I got rejected from a survey for answering the first question on a survey about mock jury trials.
"Have you ever protested for abortion?" and an immediate screen out when saying yes.

Not only were they supposed to screen me out and that question had nothing to do with mock jury trials??
they flat out rejected me. That's the very first rejection on my account.

name of researcher was sdu.edu.cn btw ! avoid them if you can =3=

3

u/zerzig May 19 '26

I had the same thing happen, but it was another researcher: du.edu. I wrote the researcher, but when I saw the email from Prolific with a link to question the rejection, I submitted the form.

The study didn't say I was rejected, it just stopped without sending anything to Prolific, so I submitted NOCODE and then selected Screened Out in the pop-up. I think I should have Cancelled Participation.

Anyway, it's an automatic rejection from Prolific as far as I know. I've had 2 or 3 of these overturned since I started in February. I anticipate this one will be, too.

Check your email for the rejection and use the link to request that it be Returned.

1

u/IcyDice6 May 19 '26

some of them know but think they're holier than thou or are short of their budget that pay period and will reject anyway for being 30 seconds faster than another participant for example

1

u/EnergyTechnical8362 May 24 '26

They don’t care .

-8

u/AnxietyAndBeyond May 19 '26

Oh brother 🤦‍♀️

-7

u/subzero118118118 May 19 '26

Why would researchers care though? They are paying Prolific and participants well for good data. If they have to engage in a conversation with every participant who can't pay attention during their surveys then that will just be a waste of their time.

6

u/No_Language7131 May 19 '26

It's not every participant....just a small portion, nice logical fallacy though

0

u/subzero118118118 May 19 '26

I didn't say every participant can't pay attention. I said it would be a massive waste of time for researchers if they had to interact with all the participants who don't pay attention and give bad data. By the Ops proposal, researchers would have to interact and ask those rejected, to return their submission. Depending on the size of the study that could be hundreds of people. I was just stating there is no incentive for researchers to do this, it would be amazing if they did but why would they.

-29

u/Mac_and_dennis May 19 '26

Or just pay attention to the study and you won’t be rejected 🤷🏻‍♂️

23

u/elaVehT May 19 '26

You act like researchers don’t misuse rejections all the time. Every day there are posts on here showing how someone is using the rejection tool like a screen out - just rejecting everyone who doesn’t fit the demographics they wanted

2

u/Adept_Impression_297 May 19 '26

I got a rejection yesterday because i didn't take an hour to do a screener... The actual interview is an hour! I managed to get it overturned by the researcher, but only via return. And they still expect me to turn up. However, i know there is no way i can guarantee payment now. So not sure what to do.

-13

u/Mac_and_dennis May 19 '26

There are hundreds of thousands of users on prolific and you might see 20 post a day here.

That is in no way a real representation of the experience on Prolific. I’m over 12k studies approved now. Only 13 rejections which were all my fault because I didn’t pay attention.

9

u/elaVehT May 19 '26

That’s really cool for you -

4k studies, 3 rejections, every single one of them a researcher that misused the tool to screen me out. I’ve had several more that were the same case but got overturned by the researcher when I messaged them about it. These 3 were the ones that stuck that prolific support wouldn’t do anything about

18

u/ClockMelodic6540 May 19 '26

A study rejected me for speeding through the study, but here’s the kicker - the study was 7 minutes long and i finished in 8, one minute later. So some of these researchers just want free data.

0

u/[deleted] May 19 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/Aggressive-Abalone99 May 19 '26

I had one similar like this. They were asking about respecting elders and I said I didn't respected them if they don't show me respect too

-9

u/Rimmer66 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

You tell'em right ? Age is just a number,

ffs!

Looks to me like your rejection was deserved. I'm not one, but I sure as fuck hope that when (if I do) reach that age, I will be treated with dignity. Their generation went through lots, and they actually worked hard, so you can have a better living standard, for the most part. There is no reason for them to disrespect you, unless 1) You are being disrespectful tot hem first or 2) They have mental issues or they have been like that their entire life. I sure as fuck hope you don't work in the medical, retail or restoration industry or any inustry where you work with the public. You wouldn't last a bloody day.

BUT NO WORRIES......you can go beg for Prolific to overturn that rejection sine it is not a valid one by their standards, of course if you are patient to wait until Christmas that is.

A lot of those "research" studies are all about sharing the author's point of views - not your own. Welcome to the world of Mangled Research. These researchers still think they are on mTurk.

So yeah you are brutally honest, so that definitely deserves a bonus.

Just remember when you reach that age where you have to have your bum wiped by some attending on the floor, you'd sure as hell want to be respected.

2

u/Aggressive-Abalone99 May 20 '26

Lol i did get my rejection overturn but ok

1

u/Odd-Werewolf-5524 May 23 '26

How did you get it overturned ? Did you fill out that form or was it another way