Self-Affirmation and Productivity

Last registered on October 02, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Self-Affirmation and Productivity
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012142
Initial registration date
September 20, 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 02, 2023, 8:47 AM 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
Sebastian Schneiders
Affiliation
University of Cologne
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Bettina Rockenbach
PI Affiliation
University of Cologne, Germany
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PI Name
Sebastian Tonke
PI Affiliation
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany
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PI Name
Björn Vollan
PI Affiliation
Phillips University Marburg, Germany
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PI Name
Arne R. Weiss
PI Affiliation
University of Alicante, Spain; University of Bern, Wyss Academy for Nature, Switzerland
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-09-22
End date
2023-12-31
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study the effects of a psychological self-affirmation intervention on performance in a real-effort task. The study is motivated by a previously conducted field experiment among a poor and stigmatized group in Namibia, in which a standard self-affirmation intervention (recalling successful experiences) backfired by reducing productivity. In an online experiment, we study whether this backfiring can be explained by a failure to adequately respond to the self-affirmation prompt. Subjects may either fail to adequately respond when they have difficulty recalling successful experiences (“ease-of-retrieval”) or when subjects do not fill the time allocated to talk about positive experiences.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Rockenbach, Bettina et al. 2023. "Self-Affirmation and Productivity." AEA RCT Registry. October 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12142-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Participants are asked to recall experiences that made them feel successful and proud. Subsequently, participants can work on a real-effort task with substantial piece-rate incentives. In the real-effort task, participants are asked to count the number of zeros in a series of 3x10 matrices filled with randomly generated zeros and ones for a maximum of ten minutes.
Intervention Start Date
2023-09-22
Intervention End Date
2023-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Number of correctly solved real-effort tasks
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
- Self-reported feelings of success and pride, and ease or difficulty of recall
- Mistakes/attempts in real-effort task
- Heterogeneous treatment effects with respect to gender, self-efficacy, and socioeconomic status (e.g., income per household member)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In a 2x2 design, we vary the number of experiences participants have to recall in which they felt successful and proud (3 vs. 8), and whether participants are given a salient time limit of 5 minutes. A control treatment asks participants to describe their daily routine on a typical day of the week.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Participants will be randomly assigned to a treatment by Qualtrics. We stratify by sex.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1870 individual participants, ITT
Sample size: planned number of observations
1870 individual participants, ITT
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We aim for 374 participants (ITT) in each of the 2x2 treatments as well as the control treatment. Taking into account a conservatively estimated drop-out rate of 10% (after exposure to the treatment), our goal is to have 340 participants in each treatment who complete the experiment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
With 374 participants (ITT) in each treatment, we are able to detect a minimum effect size of d=0.205 at conventional levels (alpha = 0.05 and power = 80%).
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, University of Cologne
IRB Approval Date
2023-07-13
IRB Approval Number
230035BR
Analysis Plan