Participants were given the role-play instructions once the consent form was submitted. Participants arrived at the role-play building with full view of all the materials in the room.

            Before role-play sessions, participants were guided through a set of instructions in order to maintain same procedural conditions for all participants.

            Once the orientation instructions were given, participants role-played under each condition for three minutes. The order of experience for each condition was randomly assigned for each participant. Conversations were always stopped at the end of 3 minutes, whether or not a conclusion was reached. When repeating the role-play sessions, participants were to assume that they had not met the customer service representative before.

            With the exception of conversation dialogue and answers to questions, the experimenter’s instructions were given exactly the same for all participants.

            After finishing all three sessions participants were then asked to fill out the questionnaire. Once the questionnaire was completed, compensation was sent and a non-formal interview took place.

***More details about the procedure can be found in the project log.