Examining the Impact of Information on Attitudes Towards Pro-Redistributive Policies: A Randomized Controlled Trial

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to rigorously evaluate the effects of the treatments. The study will involve a total sample of approximately 5,000 observations, which will be randomly assigned to four groups:
1. Control Group
2. T1. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Compulsory Reading)
3. T2. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Optional Reading)
4. T3. Choice Group, Redistribution-Growth Treatment Group (Choose Between Two Articles)

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to rigorously evaluate the effects of the treatments. The study will involve a total sample of approximately 5,000 observations, which will be randomly assigned to four groups:
1. Control Group: Participants in the control group will be presented with an unrelated text to minimize potential priming effects on the treatments. To further investigate the influence of priming, half of the control group will receive an additional unrelated text, while the other half will not.
2. T1. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Compulsory Reading): This group will be provided with a "synthetic" text created by the researchers, based on actual news articles from German newspapers. The text highlights the impact of inflation on income inequality and poverty, aiming to inform participants about the negative consequences of inflation on income distribution and the prevalence of poverty.
3. T2. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Optional Reading): Participants in this group will receive the same text as in T1 but will be given the option to read it or not. This allows us to observe the effects of voluntary engagement with the material.
4. T3. Choice Group, Redistribution-Growth Treatment Group (Choose Between Two Articles): Participants in this group will be presented with the titles of two texts. The first text is the same as that provided to T1 and T2. The second text, also developed by the researchers, focuses on the potential adverse effects of pro-redistributive policies on economic growth. It explores the trade-offs and negative consequences associated with policies aimed at wealth and income redistribution. Participants will choose to read either the first or second text. This choice-based treatment will enable us to assess whether individuals' information selection is influenced by cognitive dissonance and how they prioritize differing perspectives.

2024-11-22

2024-12-20

Preferences for redistributive policies

All individuals are surveyed on their preferences for different redistributive policies. The questions are recorded on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 indicates strong disagreement and 10 indicates strong agreement.

Dictator Game
Final electoral race
Cognitive Dissonance Assessment
Final test on the main subjects of the treatment
Sources of bias

• Dictator Game: In addition to measuring preferences for pro-redistributive policies, we can incorporate a dictator game to assess individuals' willingness to help someone who is disproportionately affected by inflation. The dictator game allows participants to allocate a sum of money to another individual without any expectation of receiving anything in return. This game provides insights into people's generosity, empathy, and willingness to assist those facing economic challenges.
• Final electoral race: We want to measure also the potential electoral implications of the treatment. To do that, we will create a few fictitious political platforms to which voters should vote for. The platforms should be consistent with different notions of justice, that is egalitarian platform, libertarian, and utilitarian.
• Cognitive Dissonance Assessment: The Thought-Induced Dissonance Scale proposed by Steele and Liu (1983) is designed to measure the degree of cognitive dissonance experienced when individuals are exposed to thoughts or information that conflict with their pre-existing beliefs or attitudes.
• Final test on the main subjects of the treatment: Including an additional question at the end of the survey to test individuals' knowledge about the economic indicators addressed in the treatment, such as the inflation rate, economic growth, and the current level of taxes in Germany. The inclusion of a knowledge-based question allows us to evaluate whether participants have learned and retained the information presented during the experiment. It provides insight into the effectiveness of the information dissemination and whether individuals have absorbed the key messages conveyed.
• Sources of bias: At the end of the experiment will include a final question inquiring about individuals' perception of survey bias towards the left or the right. By asking participants about their perception of survey bias, we can assess and control for any potential demand effect in the experiment. Demand effects refer to participants' tendency to respond in a way they believe aligns with the researchers' expectations or the perceived "correct" answer.

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to rigorously evaluate the effects of the treatments. The study will involve a total sample of approximately 5,000 observations, which will be randomly assigned to four groups:
1. Control Group
2. T1. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Compulsory Reading)
3. T2. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Optional Reading)
4. T3. Choice Group, Redistribution-Growth Treatment Group (Choose Between Two Articles)

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to rigorously evaluate the effects of the treatments. The study will involve a total sample of approximately 5,000 observations, which will be randomly assigned to four groups:
1. Control Group: Participants in the control group will be presented with an unrelated text to minimize potential priming effects on the treatments. To further investigate the influence of priming, half of the control group will receive an additional unrelated text, while the other half will not.
2. T1. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Compulsory Reading): This group will be provided with a "synthetic" text created by the researchers, based on actual news articles from German newspapers. The text highlights the impact of inflation on income inequality and poverty, aiming to inform participants about the negative consequences of inflation on income distribution and the prevalence of poverty.
3. T2. Inflation-Inequality Treatment Group (Optional Reading): Participants in this group will receive the same text as in T1 but will be given the option to read it or not. This allows us to observe the effects of voluntary engagement with the material.
4. T3. Choice Group, Redistribution-Growth Treatment Group (Choose Between Two Articles): Participants in this group will be presented with the titles of two texts. The first text is the same as that provided to T1 and T2. The second text, also developed by the researchers, focuses on the potential adverse effects of pro-redistributive policies on economic growth. It explores the trade-offs and negative consequences associated with policies aimed at wealth and income redistribution. Participants will choose to read either the first or second text. This choice-based treatment will enable us to assess whether individuals' information selection is influenced by cognitive dissonance and how they prioritize differing perspectives.

Randomization done by a survey firm - Qualtrics.

Individual

No

0

5000

1250

Using the Minimum Detectable Effect (MDE) measures, the minimum sample size required to detect an MDE of 0.1 standard deviations with three treatment arms is 4181. Besides assuming three treatment groups, to estimate the sample size we assume a power calculation of 0.8, the standard deviation of the population equal to one, and a significance level of 0.05. We overall plan to run our experiment with a sample of about 5000 individuals which would allow us to test for more robustness.