Peer Effect and Temptation in a Social Setting

Last registered on December 22, 2017

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Peer Effect and Temptation in a Social Setting
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002601
Initial registration date
December 22, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 22, 2017, 9:46 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Skidmore College

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College
PI Affiliation
Skidmore College

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2017-11-30
End date
2019-11-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Previous studies show that peer observation affects productivity (Falk and Ichino, 2006; Mas and Moretti, 2009; Georganas, Tonin, and Vlassopoulos, 2015), especially when people face temptation (Bonein and Denant-Boèmont, 2015). The focus of the proposed study is to determine how people’s decisions to engage in a tempting behavior and expend effort in a tedious task are affected by pre-commitment and the presence of peers. The proposed study is built on a study about the effect of peer pressure on self-control (Bonein and Denant-Boèmont, 2015), in which peer pressure was manipulated by revealing people’s past behaviors in a real effort task under temptation to their partners in a bargaining game. Their result suggested that peer pressure does not affect people’s decisions toward temptation. However, the authors only used indirect peer pressure, meaning that one partner could not observe their partner’s work; they could only see whether they did above their pre commitment or below it.
To make peer pressure more natural, we suggest that the participants should complete the task in the presence of their peer. We believe that people will be more productive in the presence of another worker. We will also manipulate the payoff schema for participants in the pair treatment. Participants in one group share earnings with their teammate, while participants in the other group are paid based on their individual behavior. We expect that participants in the pair treatment, those sharing profits with their teammates, will be the most productive and earn the most among three treatments.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Goff, Sandra et al. 2017. "Peer Effect and Temptation in a Social Setting." AEA RCT Registry. December 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2601-1.0
Former Citation
Goff, Sandra et al. 2017. "Peer Effect and Temptation in a Social Setting." AEA RCT Registry. December 22. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2601/history/24423
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Social setting and the availability of temptation are manipulated.
Intervention Start Date
2017-11-30
Intervention End Date
2018-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
the amount of tables participants accurately counted in the temptation task and the non-temptation task
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
commitment, Resistance to temptation
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
whether participants actually complete the amount of tables that they commit at the beginning of the study; by comparing differences between the amount of tables in the temptation task and the non-temptation task, the proposed study could detect if social settings help people resist temptation.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study measures people's productivity in two computer-based real effort tasks and manipulates the social settings and the availability of temptation during the task.
Experimental Design Details
Participants will be randomly assigned to an individual condition, a sharing-profits group condition, or a non-sharing-profit group condition. Participants in each condition will be asked to complete two 15-minute computer-based real effort tasks that they have to count zeros in the table. The only difference between two tasks is that one task is with temptation, while the other one is not. Three videos are available under each table in the task with temptation. Before participants actually start the tasks that are related with their payoff, they will have a practice round for the real effort task. Based on the time they take for the practice round, they will be asked to make a commitment about the amount of tables that they would accurately count within each 15 minutes, and their penalty rate that they would like to assign to themselves if they fail to meet their commitment level. The amount of tables that they accurately count are measured as the level of productivity, and determine participants' payoff.
Randomization Method
Coin flip, Qualtrics software
Randomization Unit
Individual levels for conditions of social settings, and individual levels for the order of task with or without temptation
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
108 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
108 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
36 students in the individual treatment, 36 students in the sharing-profits group treatment, 36 students in the non-sharing-profits group treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Skidmore College Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2017-11-20
IRB Approval Number
1711-661
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials