Beliefs, Coordination, and the Evolution of Political Movements in Real Time

Last registered on July 13, 2016

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Beliefs, Coordination, and the Evolution of Political Movements in Real Time

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0001423

Initial registration date

July 12, 2016

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

July 12, 2016, 11:45 AM EDT

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

Last updated

July 13, 2016, 10:11 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

Hong Kong

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

David Y. Yang

Affiliation

Harvard University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Jane Y. Zhang

PI Affiliation

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

PI Name

Noam Yuchtman

PI Affiliation

University of California, Berkeley

PI Name

Davide Cantoni

PI Affiliation

University of Munich (LMU)

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2015-06-10

End date

2020-12-31

Keywords

Electoral, Governance, Welfare

Additional Keywords

Democracy

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

For over two hundred years, people worldwide have taken to the streets and demanded democratic forms of government. Movements for democracy both establish political rights and shape the wealth of nations. This project studies citizens’ decisions to engage in political action, examining the population of Hong Kong, where the "Umbrella Revolution" of 2014 marked an escalation of Hong Kong citizens’ ongoing movement demanding democratic institutions from the Chinese Communist Party. In particular, this project studies three drivers of political action that shape a citizen’s political participation in a coordination game: (i) preferences: for example, risk preferences, preferences for redistribution, and generalized and specific trust; (ii) beliefs about the incumbent regime: for example, regarding its strength and its likely response to political protests; and, (iii) beliefs about other citizens’ beliefs: in a coordination game, these second-order beliefs play a crucial role in determining behavior for a given set of citizen preferences and beliefs about the regime.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Cantoni, Davide et al. 2016. "Beliefs, Coordination, and the Evolution of Political Movements in Real Time." AEA RCT Registry. July 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1423-3.0

Former Citation

Cantoni, Davide et al. 2016. "Beliefs, Coordination, and the Evolution of Political Movements in Real Time." AEA RCT Registry. July 13. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1423/history/9421

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

There will be two main interventions: (1) participants will be randomly provided with one of the three versions of messages describing a political party and its agenda in Hong Kong. Participants will then be given the option to donate part or all of the participation fee that they earn to a political party in Hong Kong; (2) participants will be first asked to guess the average answers to previous survey questions among other participants of the study. A random subset of the participants will be provided with the information of the actual average answers of other participants, so that their corresponding beliefs can be re-calibrated accordingly.

Intervention Start Date

2016-06-30

Intervention End Date

2020-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

There will be 5 main categories of outcomes of interest: (a) donation decision to the political party; (b) participation in democratic movements (self-reported, cross-checked by friends, etc.); (c) knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and preferences (regarding economic and political topics in Hong Kong and Greater China); (d) beliefs with respect to other citizens (their political and economic preferences, their planned and actual participation in political movements, etc.); (e) national identity (revealed in economic games).

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental design is outlined in "Intervention" section.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization will be done in via randomization procedure on study hosting platform (Qualtrics).

Randomization Unit

Unit of randomization will be individual study participants.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

1800 students.

Sample size: planned number of observations

1800 students.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

For the political message intervention, each version of the message will be assigned to 600 study participants.
For the belief recalibration intervention, 600 study participants will be assigned to control group, and 1200 study participants will be assigned to treatment group.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Given the panel structure, the study will allow detectable effect size of approximately 0.2 of one standard deviation.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB