Appearance Norms in Academic Settings

Last registered on October 17, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Appearance Norms in Academic Settings
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010183
Initial registration date
October 15, 2023

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
October 17, 2023, 1:51 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Jeffrey Shrader
Affiliation
Columbia University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Tarikua Erda
PI Affiliation
Columbia University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-10-15
End date
2024-06-30
Keywords
Behavior, Education, Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Appearance is potentially important in academic settings: in-person/virtual job-talks for academic hiring are common across many fields; personal websites and videos summarizing research articles are becoming standard; speeches and seminars are a routine part of publicizing papers. Are there definitive norms of appearance in academia, or are they more like unspoken rules and are there differences across disciplines? How does the public’s understanding of norms compare against the views of academics? We plan to answer these questions by surveying three groups of respondents—faculty, university students, and lay adults—about their perception of academic job candidates they know to be hypothetical. In particular, we will ask them to rate pictured headshots on perceived competence, professionalism, and agreeability. This study will generate novel evidence on norms of appearance in academic settings.

This Pre-Analysis Plan is being filed concurrently with the launch of the lay adult and student sample surveys.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Erda, Tarikua and Jeffrey Shrader. 2023. "Appearance Norms in Academic Settings." AEA RCT Registry. October 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10183-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Two different information intervention experiments will be conducted on respondents to see whether the interventions will affect how respondents' rating of subsequent headshots.
Intervention Start Date
2023-10-15
Intervention End Date
2024-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Ratings of headshots on three main metrics: based on perceived competence, professionalism, and agreeableness.
- The list experiment in our study with a control and treatment group (randomized with even 50% chance) will also produce a set of primary outcomes that will help estimate the share of the population which misreports their opinion on the sensitive statement.

List experiment will also produce measures of the shares of respondents who agree with veiled and/or direct versions of a sensitive statement
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
- The ratings on headshots are direct ratings that each respondent makes based on a 1-10 Likert scale.
- The measurement details for the outcomes from the list experiment follow Aksoy, Carpenter, Sansone (2022) and are explained in more detail in the Analysis Plan.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Not available.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization will be done by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Randomization will be done at the individual respondent level.

The visual stimuli shown to each survey respondents will be randomly selected from a set of photos by a computer as well.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Approximately 500 university students

Approximately 2500 lay adults
Sample size: planned number of observations
Each respondent will rate 32 photos. A subset of the photos are 'extras' that do not involve experimental manipulation; these will be excluded from the analysis. On average, 14% of the photos a respondent sees will be these extra photos, and the effective sample size will be the number of experimentally manipulated photos seen by all respondents.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
List experiment: control (50 percent) and treatment (50 percent)
Information intervention: control (1/3), generic treatment (1/3), main treatment (1/3)
Experimenter demand induction: no demand (50 percent), weak demand (25 percent), and strong demand (25 percent)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Columbia IRB
IRB Approval Date
2023-10-12
IRB Approval Number
IRB-AAAU0417
Analysis Plan

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