Lasst uns reden

Last registered on September 08, 2022

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Lasst uns reden
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010011
Initial registration date
September 07, 2022

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
September 08, 2022, 10:50 AM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
ETH Zurich

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-07-01
End date
2022-11-30
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We conduct a randomized controlled trial with interested citizens to study the effect of conversations with strangers holding different political opinions on affective polarization, trust, and intentions for political participation. In collaboration with the Swiss Society for the Common Good (SGG), we randomly invite interested people to take part in two time-delayed dialogue weekends, and in between the two event weekends, measure their attitudes towards outpartisan voters and individuals with different political opinions, their general trust towards others as well as their trust towards different institutions, and their propensity to engage in different political activities.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Henkel, Aljosha, Deborah Kistler and Adina Rom. 2022. "Lasst uns reden." AEA RCT Registry. September 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10011-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
“Lasst uns reden” is an initiative that aims to bring together individuals with different political opinions to talk to each other about topics where they have opposing views.

Individuals interested in participating could sign up via a website to participate in so called dialogue weekends. To sign up, they had to answer ten questions about different political topics. At the end of the sign-up period, each participant was matched with a person with opposing views, i.e., a person that answered the ten political questions from the sign-up form completely differently).
Intervention Start Date
2022-08-25
Intervention End Date
2022-09-08

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Affective Polarization (questionnaire measures). We measure how people view outpartisan voters compared to inpartisan voters (measure 1), and how people view individuals with different political opinions than their own (measure 2). These measures are aggregated measures following Heuser (2022) for measure 2, and Druckman & Levendusky (2019) for measure 1.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Trust (questionnaire measures). We have different measures of trust: a measure of how much individuals trust other individuals in general and a measure of how much they trust in institutions, science, and the media.

Political Participation (questionnaire measures). We measure the propensity to engage in different political activities, such as collecting signatures for an initiative or referendum, donating money for a political organization, being active in a political organization, and talking about politics with other people (personally and online).
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
We plan to explore if treatment intensity (duration of the conversation, number of (controversial) topics discussed, online meeting or in person) has an impact on the outcome of interests. In addition, we will look at gender, educational background, and political opinion (right-left).

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
“Lasst uns reden” is an initiative that aims to bring together individuals with different political opinions to talk to each other about topics where they have opposing views.

Individuals interested in participating could sign up via a website to participate in so called dialogue weekends. To sign up, they had to answer ten questions about different political topics. At the end of the sign-up period, each participant was matched with a person with opposing views, i.e., a person that answered the ten political questions from the sign-up form completely differently).

Baseline Data Collection: Subsequently, we invited all signed up participants to an online baseline survey, where we measured their party preferences and levels of affective polarization (views of view outpartisan voters compared to inpartisan voters, views of individuals with different political opinions) and trust (general trust towards others, trust towards different institutions). We will use these pre-treatment outcomes as control variables in our analysis to increase the precision of our estimated treatment effects. We also collected a variety of other questionnaire measures such as their sociodemographics, past engagement in different political activities, social preferences, and life satisfaction.

Randomization: To measure the effect of talking to someone with a different political opinion on our outcome variables, we randomly allocated some participants to a first dialogue weekend (treatment) and others to the second dialogue weekend (control), which takes place two weeks after the first one. This “waitlist design” allows us to have a treatment and control group for a short time.

Matching: Prior to the first dialogue weekend, those participants randomly allocated to the first weekend learned about their proposed match, i.e. the person with opposing views with whom they are intended to have the conversation. Only if both accept their proposed match, they received the contact information of each other and were asked to arrange a date and time to meet and talk. The organization proposed to them the specific weekend on which the meeting should take place but participants were essentially free to set the time and date on their own. Additionally, participants received some guidelines and tips to support them in structuring the dialogue in a constructive manner. Members of the control group only learn about their match after the first dialogue weekend has taken place.

Endline Data Collection: In the second survey (main survey), for which we invite all signed-up participants (treatment and control) after the first dialogue weekend, we will measure their levels of affective polarization (attitudes towards outpartisan voters compared to inpartisan voters as well as attitudes towards individuals with different political opinions), their general trust towards others as well as their trust towards different institutions, and their propensity to engage in different political activities. Hence, we will elicit our outcome variables right after the first weekend, when participants in the treatment group should have had the dialogue, and participants in the control group will not yet have talked to each other.
Additionally, we add a small experiment within the treatment group. Before the elicitation of the affective polarization measure, half of the respondents (random assignment) will receive a priming question. The other half of the respondents will receive the priming question at the end of the survey. The priming question, asks respondents to write down a similarity that they share with the person they met. In addition, we will collect feedback about the program.

We are planning to conduct a second survey for the control group to receive their input for future iterations of the program.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
At the very end of the sign-up, i.e. after answering all political questions and indicating their contact details, participants are randomly allocated to one of the two weekends. The randomization is done by the algorithm on the landing page.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
The sample size includes all participants that sign up for the program. 504 participants signed up for the program. Of which 273 were allocated to the first weekend and 230 were allocated to the second weekend.
Sample size: planned number of observations
The sample size includes all participants that sign up for the program. 504 participants signed up for the program. Of which 273 were allocated to the first weekend and 230 were allocated to the second weekend.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
The sample size includes all participants that sign up for the program. 504 participants signed up for the program. Of which 273 were allocated to the first weekend and 230 were allocated to the second weekend.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
German Association for Experimental Economic Research e.V.
IRB Approval Date
2022-09-01
IRB Approval Number
No. rdw1d2JE

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