THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
THE CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
Title: Psychedelic Use and Psychological flexibility
Principal Investigator: William Campo, B.A.
Co-Principal Investigator/Project Advisor: Ann Marie Yali, PhD
HRPP File Number: 2021-0011
You are invited to participate in an anonymous online research survey exploring how certain psychological processes before and during a classic psychedelic experience impact psychological flexibility. Answering the questions takes 30 minutes on average, with some individuals taking a bit shorter or longer to complete the survey.
Eligibility:
If you have ever taken a classic psychedelic (e.g., LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, DMT, mescaline) or intend to take a classic psychedelic (e.g., participate in a ritual/ceremony), you are eligible to participate in this study. You must also be 18 years of age at the time of taking the survey and have a working proficiency in English.
Procedure:
If you agree to be in this study, you will be asked to answer several questions regarding psychedelics, regarding your feelings and attitudes about yourself and your experiences, as well as the setting of the psychedelic experience. If you have taken a psychedelic before, you will only be asked to complete this survey once. If you intend to take a psychedelic for the first time within the next 12 months (e.g., in a ceremony or ritual), the first survey will briefly ask questions about some of your feelings and attitudes and then you will be invited to participate in a follow-up, after your first use. If you agree to the follow up survey, you will be asked to create a short code and then will be taken to a new page where you can indicate where and when you would like that follow-up survey sent. This page will be completely disconnected from your responses, thus keeping responses anonymous.
Voluntary Nature of the Study:
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. If you decide not to participate, just click “I do not consent” at the bottom of this page and you will be exited from this site. If you agree to participate, you are free to not answer any question or withdraw your consent at any time during the survey.
Risks:
If you have taken a psychedelic before, risks may include triggering of negative emotions that might have been experienced during your psychedelic session. If you intend to take a psychedelic within the next 12 months, risks may include a form of nervousness or anxiety in connection to your upcoming psychedelic experience or in providing where and when you would like the follow-up survey sent. There may be some risk of data breach; in the rare event of a data breach in Qualtrics, you may have concerns about the security of your information. The risks of breach of security of information are minimized by the privacy protocols put in place by Qualtrics (see confidentiality section) and the risk of breach is expected to be no greater than the risk of breach assumed by people who use the internet or social media on a daily basis.
Benefits:
For experienced users of psychedelics, this survey is an opportunity to revisit and contemplate a significant and possibly transformative experience you had. You may also find it meaningful to further explore some of the implications of your experience. For both experienced users and those contemplating use, your participation will be making an important contribution to research about psychological processes during psychedelic use.
Confidentiality:
Qualtrics (Survey Site) uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption (also known as HTTPS) for all transmitted data and services are hosted by trusted data centers that are independently audited using the industry standard SSAE-18 method. This practice minimizes the risk of data breaches. Any record of participating in this study will be kept private to the study researchers. There will be no uniquely identifying information in the survey itself that would allow for answers to be matched to you personally. Any codes created for follow up surveys will be kept confidential. If you provide an email and future use date for the follow up study, this information will be collected in a separate document from your survey responses so that there is no link between your responses and email address. In any sort of report from this study that we might publish, findings will be summarized and no information that will make it possible to identify any participant will be included. Once the study has been completed, the documents with emails will be deleted. All information collected for this study will be stored securely on password protected computers and only the approved research team who have training in research protections will have access to the data for analysis.
Contacts and Questions:
The researchers conducting this study are: William Campo, B.A. and Ann Marie Yali, PhD. If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to contact us at wcampo000@citymail.cuny.edu or ayali@ccny.cuny.edu before agreeing to participate in this study.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights as a research participant and would like to talk to someone other than the principal and co-principal investigators, you are encouraged to call the CUNY Research Compliance Administrator at 646-664-8918 or email HRPP@cuny.edu. Alternatively, you may write to: CUNY Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research Attn: Research Compliance Administrator 205 East 42nd Street New York, NY 10017.
Statement of Consent:
I have read the above information. I consent to participate in this study.