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Real Competition

Last registered on September 25, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Real Competition
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003522
Initial registration date
November 01, 2018

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
November 05, 2018, 8:11 PM EST

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

Last updated
September 25, 2019, 8:41 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
NHH Norwegian School of Economics

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Amsterdam
PI Affiliation
NHH Norwegian School of Economics

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2018-10-29
End date
2020-11-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The setting in which willingness to compete is commonly studied in the lab differs from real- life competitive settings along two important dimensions (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007),(Buser, Niederle, and Oosterbeek, 2014), (Almås, Cappelen, Salvanes, Sørensen, and Tungodden, 2016). 1. Competing in real life creates losers 2. Competing in real life either means competing against a selective group of people who also want to compete (selection) or forcing others into competition (forcing). We want to investigate whether these dimensions matter to people when deciding whether to compete and whether these dimensions have an impact on the gender difference in tournament
entry that is robustly found in the classical setting. This leads to the following research questions: 1. Are people more reluctant to compete if winning the competition creates a loser? 2. Do people take into account the selective nature of competition? That is, are they less likely to compete when competition is against others who have self-selected into competition? 3. Do men and women react differently to these factors? Furthermore, the competitiveness literature so far largely ignores issues of fairness. The same person might be willing to compete when competition is fair and refuse to compete when it is seems unfair. On the other hand, some people might be happy to compete when they receive an unfair advantage. Finally, in some settings, such as the workplace, starting to act competitively with others might force these others to compete themselves. The present study also provides an initial investigation of these issues.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Buser, Thomas, Alexander Cappelen and Bertil Tungodden. 2019. "Real Competition." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3522-2.0
Former Citation
Buser, Thomas, Alexander Cappelen and Bertil Tungodden. 2019. "Real Competition." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3522/history/54018
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-09-30
Intervention End Date
2019-12-02

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Willingness to compete
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The setting in which willingness to compete is commonly studied in the lab differs from real- life competitive settings along two important dimensions (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007),(Buser, Niederle, and Oosterbeek, 2014), (Almås, Cappelen, Salvanes, Sørensen, and Tungodden, 2016). 1. Competing in real life creates losers 2. Competing in real life either means competing against a selective group of people who also want to compete (selection) or forcing others into competition (forcing). We want to investigate whether these dimensions matter to people when deciding whether to compete and whether these dimensions have an impact on the gender difference in tournament
entry that is robustly found in the classical setting. This leads to the following research questions: 1. Are people more reluctant to compete if winning the competition creates a loser? 2. Do people take into account the selective nature of competition? That is, are they less likely to compete when competition is against others who have self-selected into competition? 3. Do men and women react differently to these factors? Furthermore, the competitiveness literature so far largely ignores issues of fairness. The same person might be willing to compete when competition is fair and refuse to compete when it is seems unfair. On the other hand, some people might be happy to compete when they receive an unfair advantage. Finally, in some settings, such as the workplace, starting to act competitively with others might force these others to compete themselves. The present study also provides an initial investigation of these issues.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
computer
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
NA
Sample size: planned number of observations
400 pupils
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
NA
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) IRB
IRB Approval Date
2018-10-20
IRB Approval Number
N/A
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