For this experiment, we manipulated the color of the waiting
screen on the childline's website (red vs. white vs. blue; see
methodological detail (MD) Appendix A). This screen appears
only if there is a time lag between a child's request for a chat
and his/her being connected with the counselor. As the helpline's
system records this waiting time in minutes, we only
analyze the chats with a waiting time of more than one minute.
That is because a recorded waiting time of more than one
minute indicates that participants were indeed exposed to the
focal color manipulation for at least one minute. After the chat
is finished, the counselor codes the conversation as to whether
it was a prank or not. The counselors were blind to the
hypotheses, and the color of the waiting screen that might
have appeared before the chat began