The Visual Narrative: Premium Accounts, Social Media, and Ethnic Discrimination (Wave 2)

Last registered on September 17, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Visual Narrative: Premium Accounts, Social Media, and Ethnic Discrimination (Wave 2)
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014294
Initial registration date
September 13, 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
September 17, 2024, 1:49 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Tuebingen

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Tuebingen
PI Affiliation
University of Tuebingen

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-08-30
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
We conduct a correspondence test in the housing market to determine the effect of premium accounts that affect information salience on ethnic discrimination and the role of visual stereotypes. We send fictitious applications with a randomly assigned Turkish- or German-sounding male name to vacant room ads. We randomly select half of the applications to be send from subscription-based premium accounts, which prioritize applications in the advertiser's inbox. Moreover, a link to a social media profile is randomly added to determine the effect of personal social media information on callback rates. Half of these profiles display visual stereotypes that signal religious beliefs and cultural orientation and were previously utilized in a similar study (AEARCTR-0011322). The aim is to extend the previous study, which already included a (limited) number of premium applications (an opportunity that arose during the course of the previous study), with a second wave to increase statistical power.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Manger, Christian, Raphael Moritz and Kerstin Pull. 2024. "The Visual Narrative: Premium Accounts, Social Media, and Ethnic Discrimination (Wave 2)." AEA RCT Registry. September 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14294-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-09-15
Intervention End Date
2024-11-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Callback rates conditional on account status, ethnicity, and social media information (variation of information using visual stereotypes)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We use a non-matched pair randomized controlled trial (correspondence test, between-subjects design) to examine the role of premium accounts that affect information salience and social media information on ethnic discrimination in the shared housing market in Germany. To do so, we randomly vary the name of the applicant, which signals an ethnic minority or majority status, and additional social media information (personal social media profiles) of the applicant. Half of the social media profiles display visual narratives that signal cultural identification and religious beliefs. These visual narratives address stereotypes typically held by the ethnic majority about the ethnic minority as evidenced in a previous study (see AEARCTR-0011322). The submitted applications are similar in all aspects except for (a) the (premium) account status of the applicants, (b) the applicants’ names, which signal the applicant's ethnicity, (c) whether the application contains a link to the social media profile, and if it does, whether the profile contains ethnic minority stereotypes (2x2x3 design). The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a premium account and social media information on ethnic discrimination.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Computer-generated (pseudo) randomization using a computer program (using Python)
Randomization Unit
Individual level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
n/a
Sample size: planned number of observations
In a first wave (see AEARCTR-0011322), we applied to 1,017 vacant rooms using premium accounts and to 1,067 vacant rooms using non-premium accounts (following the introduction of the premium feature on the platform) as the control group. Power calculations, based on the data collected in the first wave, using a three-way ANOVA, indicate that 638 observations are required to assess the main effect, 3,082 observations for the effect of the different informational treatments, 9,394 observations for the premium effect (with all interactions) and 3,612 observations for the interaction between information and premium for a given effect size of .088 with a power of .8 and a significance level of .05. Due to the overall callback rate of 31.4 percent in the first wave, we plan to roughly double the number of observations.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
See first wave (AEARCTR-0011322)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
IRB Approval Date
2023-05-02
IRB Approval Number
A2.5.4-286_bi
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Author's notes on wave 2 & analysis plan

MD5: 821be8071430086d901e53951ba57d28

SHA1: 37e0be5957a9c7ce9408b0caab6bbd418a5f3db8

Uploaded At: September 13, 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