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Field Before After
Trial Start Date October 23, 2024 November 01, 2025
Trial End Date January 31, 2025 April 30, 2026
Last Published October 28, 2024 01:43 PM January 13, 2026 11:53 PM
Intervention (Public) Our experiment does not have an intervention. We have two randomized treatments in this experiment. This treatment variation is about whether an individual is shown conservative views or liberal views for the vignettes described below. Our experiment does not have an intervention. There are two experiments. In Experiment 1, we employ a randomized treatment variation that examines whether an individual is presented with conservative or liberal views for the vignettes described below. Experiment 1 was already pre-registered and conducted. The preregistration given below only refers to that of Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, we use a two by two randomized treatment design. One treatment variation is, as in Experiment 1, about whether an individual is shown conservative views or liberal views for the vignettes; the other treatment variation is about the default number of people who will receive the vignettes if they are spread out.
Intervention Start Date October 28, 2024 November 02, 2025
Intervention End Date December 31, 2024 April 30, 2026
Primary Outcomes (End Points) Measures of intolerance 1. Willingness to pay to prevent the spread of a view to either 1 or 100 people. 2. Allocation of points between different reasons for preventing the spread of an incongruent view
Primary Outcomes (Explanation) Measures of intolerance will be obtained by comparing the three variables when views expressed in a vignette are either congruous or incongruous with the personal norms of the participant: 1) the willingness to pay to prevent the spread of a view 2) the effort provided in a task that benefits others who share or do not share the same views 3) the decision to prevent the dissemination of a political donation solicitation poster
Experimental Design (Public) We will describe a series of vignettes in which a decision-maker makes a decision. We will evaluate the personal and social norms associated with each decision. Subsequently, we will frame these vignettes in the form of social media posts expressing a view associated with each vignette. We will then ask the participants if they are willing to block the spread of the view expressed in the post, and if yes, how much they are willing to pay to block the spread of the post. We will also ask them to choose whom they will want to share a surplus with (this surplus comes from a real-effort task). Importantly, we will recruit individuals who have a conservative or a liberal view. Our randomized treatment variation comes from whether an individual is exposed to liberal views or conservative views. We will describe a series of four vignettes in which a decision-maker makes a decision and we will frame these vignettes in the form of social media posts expressing a view associated with each decision. We will evaluate the personal norms associated with each decision. We will ask the participants if they are willing to block the spread of the view expressed in the post, and how much they are willing to pay to block the spread of this view. Importantly, we will recruit individuals who have a conservative or a liberal view (defined in the PAP). We will investigate the reasons why individuals choose to pay to prevent the spread of a view when the treatment is incongruent with one's orientation (conservative vs. liberal) and to what extent this willingness to pay depends on the default number of posts' recipients. One randomized treatment variation comes from whether an individual is exposed to liberal views or conservative views. The other randomized treatment variation comes from whether the post is, by default, spread to a small (1) or a large (100) number of individuals.
Planned Number of Observations 1000 (nationally representative sample recruited through Prolific) We will use a representative sample from the US, excluding participants who already participated in Experiment 1. This sample will consist of 1000 participants recruited through Academic Prolific. We will categorize a participant as Liberal or Conservative, based on their self-reported measure of how they identify themselves on an 11-point liberal-conservative scale. In this sample, we will not include anyone who reports 5 (i.e., they are at the center) on this scale, or anyone who reports they would vote for neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, or anyone who would express an inconsistent ideological position and voting preference (e.g., a liberal who votes for the Republicans). Such participants will not be allowed to proceed after the initial screening questions.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms 500 in each treatment 500 in each treatment variation. We will pool data from the treatment where the views are being spread to 1 person or 100 people when we compare liberal and conservative treatments. Likewise, we will pool data from the liberal treatment and the conservative treatment when comparing the outcomes of treatments that spread views to either one person or 100 people.
Keyword(s) Behavior, Electoral Behavior
Secondary Outcomes (End Points) We have two sets of secondary outcome variables. The first set of secondary outcome variables relate to survey-based measures of intolerance. -Self-reported levels of intolerance based on survey questions -Staircase-based method of measuring intolerance Besides, we will record other contextual outcomes that are related to: - Personal Norms - Social Norms - Measure of pro-social behavior - Other survey-based measures We have three sets of secondary outcome variables. The first set of secondary outcome variables relate to survey-based measures of intolerance. -Self-reported levels of intolerance based on survey questions -Staircase-based method of measuring intolerance The second outcome is the decision to cooperate or defect in a Prisoner's Dilemma game. The third set of outcome variables are related to: - Personal Norms - Decision to cooperate in a prisoner's dilemma game - Measure of pro-social behavior - Other survey-based measures of intolerance
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Other Primary Investigators

Field Before After
Affiliation Monash University
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