Behavioral Attenuation

Last registered on July 10, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Behavioral Attenuation
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013308
Initial registration date
June 18, 2024

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
June 25, 2024, 10:43 AM EDT

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

Last updated
July 10, 2024, 4:01 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
UC Santa Barbara

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Harvard University
PI Affiliation
Harvard Business School
PI Affiliation
Harvard University

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-06-18
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This research aims to study behavioral attenuation: the idea that, as a result of noisy information processing, people’s decisions are generally insufficiently elastic to variation in economic primitives. To do this, we run 30 parallel treatments, covering a broad range of economic decisions ranging from preference elicitations to belief updating to generic optimization problems, involving risk, time, consumption-savings, effort supply, taxes, fairness, giving, energy savings, information disclosure, prediction and inference, in both individual decisions and strategic games. In each of these domains (treatments), we vary one parameter, within-subject over a series of rounds, that has a predicted monotonic relationship to the subject’s decision. After each decision we elicit the subject’s “cognitive uncertainty” (CU) – the likelihood with which the subject believes they failed to make an optimal decision. Our main hypothesis is that (i) subjects with higher CU will make decisions that are less responsive to the parameter varied in the experiment and (ii) in tasks with objectively correct decisions, subjects will be less responsive than optimal. Our subjects are recruited from Prolific, restricting to subjects from the US and UK.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Enke, Benjamin et al. 2024. "Behavioral Attenuation." AEA RCT Registry. July 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13308-1.3
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Each subject is assigned one of 30 tasks (reviewed in the experimental design field below), given instructions and asked to make a decision that will influence some outcome over a series of rounds (specified in the pre-analysis plan). Within each task, the main intervention is that a parameter relevant to the decision is varied across rounds (reported for each task in the pre-analysis plan). Subjects are asked for an estimate of the likelihood with which they made an optimal decision (exact wording varies across tasks/treatments but is provided in each case in the supporting documents).
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-06-18
Intervention End Date
2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcome for each subject is a sequence of decisions, the nature of which varies across treatments/tasks and is described in detail for each treatment below.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
The secondary outcome for each subject and decision is the subject’s confidence: the subject’s own estimate of the likelihood with which they made an optimal decision (“cognitive uncertainty”).
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Each experiment is drawn from a large list of different behavioral decision paradigms listed in the Task List document. In each case, the participant completes up to 11 rounds of the same task. In some tasks, participants’ decisions affect their own or each other’s payments, as described in the Task List document. Across rounds, we vary the task parameters. An example is a savings decision, where the subject decides how much of their budget to consume or save as a function of the interest rate. Across rounds, the interest rate varies. After a subject makes their decision, we elicit (without incentives) the likelihood with which they believe they made an optimal decision. Subjects receive a participation payment (varied across tasks and reported in our pre-analysis plan) and in some tasks payment bonuses based on their and/or others’ decisions.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization of payments are conducted by the experimental software where applicable.
Randomization Unit
The order in which individual subjects are assigned parameters over the course of rounds is randomized at the subject level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
6000 participants
Sample size: planned number of observations
130,000 (11 rounds per subject in 29 tasks and 6 rounds in one task; each round includes both a choice and a cognitive certainty elicitation)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Please see Sample Size document.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
N/A
Supporting Documents and Materials

Documents

Document Name
Sample Size
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Sample Size

MD5: 6e3e51e97d086af3f67e0515e2525365

SHA1: ac8477d627c4c4c164f4ad858cd01c568bb91e55

Uploaded At: June 18, 2024

Document Name
Task Description
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Task Description

MD5: df17f91aa42ed7798266f067819c88ad

SHA1: b7c9268d9935a149e0b96c643d24c441dc2e31b9

Uploaded At: June 18, 2024

Document Name
Parameter Description
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Parameter Description

MD5: d0ea0feff45ffaa382c4019e6b7268e1

SHA1: 37adf5eb665210fe5021f52d15e9f99cba31f0a3

Uploaded At: June 18, 2024

Document Name
Additional Information: Public Goods Game
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Additional Information: Public Goods Game

MD5: ba99680b56421b10051a8c4dd333daea

SHA1: 674059cd7efe131ea545e22683aae3bce5e54328

Uploaded At: June 28, 2024

Document Name
Revised Sample Sizes
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Revised Sample Sizes

MD5: db76978169eb3785c4dc37b231282185

SHA1: d9188ea3c4478878370e626fad59548d776bde31

Uploaded At: July 10, 2024

Document Name
Additional Information: Joint Evaluation Treatment
Document Type
other
Document Description
File
Additional Information: Joint Evaluation Treatment

MD5:

SHA1:

Uploaded At: July 10, 2024

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Harvard University-Area
IRB Approval Date
2024-05-13
IRB Approval Number
IRB24-0524
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Analysis Plan

MD5: 168cbb3c8f138740f2f7bfa66f4ea943

SHA1: 7969258fba91447a7dd8cfa97719b5eb5e7bbbbf

Uploaded At: June 18, 2024

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