You can use Prolific to recruit participants for dyadic studies, including paired tasks, multiplayer experiments, and studies involving couples. However, Prolific doesn’t provide software to match participants or manage interactions between them. You’ll need to host your study on an external platform that supports these features.

This guide explains how to set up your study, manage participant matching, and make sure participants are fairly compensated.

For a dyadic study, participants need to interact in pairs or groups, rather than complete a task independently.

To run this type of study, you’ll need to:

During daytime hours in most time zones, hundreds of participants may be active on Prolific, making real-time matching possible. However, study places are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, so successful matching can’t be guaranteed.

Your external platform must handle the interaction between participants. Before launching your study, decide how participants will be matched and what will happen if a suitable partner isn’t available.

Consider the following:

Test these scenarios before launching your study to make sure the participant experience is clear and your data collection works as expected.

Waiting for a partner can add time to a study, so make sure your estimated completion time includes both the task itself and any expected waiting time.

For example, if your task takes 20 minutes and participants may wait up to 10 minutes for a match, set an estimated completion time of around 30 minutes.

Prolific’s general recommended payment rates apply to dyadic studies too:

Make sure your reward accounts for the time participants are expected to spend waiting as well as completing the task.

Participants who wait to be matched but aren’t successfully paired must receive partial payment for their time.

As a minimum, compensate unmatched participants at £0.10 / $0.14 per minute spent waiting. For example, if a participant waits for up to 10 minutes without finding a partner, they should receive £1.00 / $1.40.

You must also ensure that participants aren’t rejected simply because they couldn’t find a partner. A matching failure isn’t a valid reason for rejection.

Explain the matching process, the maximum waiting time, and the partial reward participants will receive if no match is found. Include this information in your study description or participant instructions before they begin.

For example:

Make sure the waiting time and partial reward you specify are consistent with your study setup and applicable payment requirements.

The best setup depends on your study design.

If your external platform handles matching and participants can join independently, you can generally use a regular Prolific study. You don’t usually need to run a separate recruitment or scheduling study first.

You can use a multi-part design, such as an initial screening survey followed by a scheduled live session, or multiple follow-up sessions.

Researchers generally create a separate Prolific study for each stage or time point. Record participants’ Prolific IDs in your external survey software so you can link responses across stages and invite the appropriate participants back.
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Plan payments for each stage separately, based on the time and work required for that stage. Explain any payment arrangements or contingencies in advance. If a participant completes a stage, you must still compensate them for that completed work in accordance with Prolific’s payment policies, even if their partner doesn’t complete a later stage.

For more information on the longitudinal study feature, see How to run longitudinal studies.

Prolific generally allows only one participant per household to take part in a given study. This means two members of the same couple may be blocked from participating in the same study.

If you need both members of a couple to participate, you’ll need to use a two-study setup that targets the different individuals appropriately.

For detailed setup instructions, see How do I run studies with couples?

If you want to maximise recruitment visibility and speed, consider launching during the afternoon or early evening in the time zone of your target participant population.

However, high-quality responses can be collected at any time, and many studies recruit quickly regardless of their launch time. For dyadic studies, participant availability is only one factor: the timing of arrivals and the matching system itself can also affect how quickly pairs form.

For more information, see When are Prolific participants most active?

Before launching, make sure you’ve accounted for these key requirements:

Once your matching process, participant instructions, payment arrangements, and data collection have been tested, you’ll be better prepared to launch your study.

Record each participant’s Prolific ID in your survey software or external study platform. You can use these IDs to associate responses with participants, link data across stages, and invite participants back when needed.

Your external platform should also record the IDs of paired participants so you can identify which responses belong to each dyad.

Pay participants separately for each stage they complete, based on the work and time required. Explain any payment arrangements in advance.

A participant who completes one stage must still be compensated for that completed work in accordance with Prolific’s payment policies. If someone waits for a partner and can’t be matched, they must also receive partial compensation for their waiting time.

The recommended solution is to use multiple studies that target the different individuals within the couple, rather than asking both partners to join the same study.

See How do I run studies with couples? for detailed instructions.

You must not collect personally identifiable information without prior approval from Prolific. Where possible, use Prolific IDs and your external platform’s matching functionality to coordinate participation without collecting additional identifying information.

For more information, see Can I ask participants for their personal information/identifiers?

Before launching, check that:

With these arrangements in place, you can use Prolific to recruit participants for dyadic, paired, and multi-stage studies while providing a clear and fair experience for participants.