We don’t offer experimental software for dyadic studies, but we can provide the participants.
If your study requires participants to interact (for example, paired tasks or multiplayer experiments), you’ll need to host it on an external platform that manages interaction or matching.
During daytime hours in most time zones, hundreds of participants are active on Prolific, which can make real-time pairing possible.
Study places are filled first-come, first-served, so successful pairings cannot be guaranteed.
Things to plan for
Matching system: Your external study software must handle pairing or multiplayer interaction.
Wait times: Participants may need to wait for a partner to join, so include any expected waiting time in your study time estimate and payment.
Unmatched participants: If participants wait to be matched but aren’t paired, you must provide a partial payment. Participants should be compensated at least £0.10/$0.14 per minute (e.g., £1.00 if matching takes up to 10 minutes).
Approvals: Participants must not be rejected for failing to match with a partner.
Dropouts: Participants may leave or disconnect during the study, which can break pairings.
Data linkage: Make sure your study records identifiers (for example, Prolific IDs) so paired responses can be linked.
Studies with couples
Prolific typically allows one participant per household per study. If your study requires couples to take part together, you will need to use a two-study setup.
For setup instructions, see: How do I run studies with couples?