Elizabeth Schechter  

I am in the process of recruiting plurals willing to participate in a series of questionnaires and interviews about their experiences and identities. This page provides information about the project to plurals who might be interested in taking part. 

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Purpose of research and use of data:

The information plurals provide to me--both ideas and direct quotes--will be used in academic research aimed at understanding and explaining plurals and plural identities. The information may also be used in popular media articles. 

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Methodology:

The research will take place in two stages. In Stage 1 participants will complete a questionnaire on Qualtrics. The questionnaire will take 1-2 hours to complete. Participants will not be asked to provide identifying information such as legal name or date of birth. 

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In Stage 2 participants will be interviewed between 1-4 times. Each interview will take 1-3 hours. Interviews will take place, where possible, over Zoom (with cameras on or off). Participants who are not comfortable with this format may participate in interviews via text-based chatting e.g. gChat. 

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Privacy and confidentiality: 

We will need to communicate via email in this study. Please use an email address that does not contain and is not directly linkable to your legal name. (For instance, do not use an email address that is also listed on a website or social media page listing your legal name.)

 

I will not ask for any identifying information, e.g. legal name or date of birth. During Stage 2 you are encouraged to interview via Zoom, with your camera on, but no video recordings will be made. Audio recordings will be made not via Zoom but via a separate voice recorder app. Audio files will be transcribed by a third party who agrees to confidentiality. After transcription, all audio files of your interviews will be destroyed. The third-party transcriber will also destroy their copies of the transcriptions of your interviews. I will retain transcriptions of your interviews and the text of your questionnaire indefinitely. The data from your questionnaire and interviews will be stored with encryption. They will not be stored in a way that is directly linked to the email address you provided and used in the study. I will retain the email address you provided for 10 years, storing it with encryption. 

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Risks:

Although every attempt will be made to keep your data confidential, confidentiality can never be strictly guaranteed. If your confidentiality were breached you would face the risk of stigma.

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Some questions that I ask may be difficult or uncomfortable for you to answer. You are always permitted to decline to answer a question without terminating your participation in the study, and you are also free to terminate your participation in the study at any time.

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Compensation: 

No compensation will be provided, but hopefully the conversations would be satisfying and meaningful to us both and help advance social recognition of plurals and plural identities.  

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Participation criteria:

Your biological age must be at least 18. 

You must identify as one of several people or individual psychological beings in your body or brain. 

For the purposes of this project, I am especially interested in plurals of endogenic (natural/sponaneous or created) origin, though diversity is also important and I will seek to interview some traumagenic plurals as well.

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Commitment: 

Completing the online questionnaire in Stage 1 will take 1-2 hours.

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Stage 2 will consist of 1-4 interviews, each of 1-3 hours in length. 

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You are free to terminate your participation in the study at any time.

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Sample interview questions:

In the course of our communication, you can expect me to ask you questions like:

When did you realize that you were or when did you come to be plural? What led you to that event?

How do you think you came to be plural?

Have you ever been diagnosed with any major mental illness, and if so, which one/s, and when?

Tell me about a time you disagreed with one of your headmates. 

Tell me about a recent time you felt ambivalent or undecided about something.

Are you “out” to any singlets IRL?

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