Paid With(out) Purpose: Perceptions, Preferences, and the Meaning of Work

Last registered on February 18, 2026
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Paid With(out) Purpose: Perceptions, Preferences, and the Meaning of Work
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015326
Initial registration date
February 04, 2025

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
February 05, 2025, 9:27 AM EST

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

Last updated
February 18, 2026, 5:38 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Remy Beauregard
Affiliation
UC Davis
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2024-09-05
End date
2025-10-20
Keywords
Behavior, Firms & Productivity, Labor
Additional Keywords
Meaningful Work, Nonmonetary Incentives, Labor Supply, Awareness
JEL code(s)
J2, J3, D9, C91
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
I develop a novel online experiment with 387 subjects on Prolific and simple utility model to examine how workers respond to reported work meaning. Workers appear to value different aspects of work and be willing to give up other incentives for their best work match. 31% of workers appear not to value meaning in their work, 27% appear not to value work pay, 30% appear to value both, and 12% cannot be characterized. Overall, 57% of workers are willing to sacrifice up to 14% of possible pay in their pursuit of meaningful work. For workers who value work meaning, I estimate positive impacts of meaningfulness on the quantity and quality of output, although these effects appear only for a task with prosocial framing. Finally, I validate a light-touch treatment designed to increase worker awareness of the value they place on meaning, again finding effects only for workers who seek meaning in their work. Importantly, raising worker awareness of work meaning has no impact on the types of incentives they seek out. These results offer insights into how such interventions and preferences for work meaning might be leveraged in organizational settings.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Beauregard, Remy. 2026. "Paid With(out) Purpose: Perceptions, Preferences, and the Meaning of Work." AEA RCT Registry. February 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15326-4.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Subjects complete online work tasks either before or after describing their tastes for such tasks. Features of the task framings are also randomly varied.
Intervention (Hidden)
Subjects are elicited to give relative and absolute rankings for a number of online work tasks randomly either before or after actually complete a subset of these tasks. Subjects are also randomized into one of four treatments that either gives them information about the larger prosocial mission of the task, provides them with an ex-ante training round for the task, both, or neither.
Intervention Start Date
2025-06-10
Intervention End Date
2025-10-20

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Probability of selecting a given task, level of effort exerted on the task
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Effort will be constructed with a variety of metrics: indicator variable for meeting the minimum required threshold of the task, number of words written, number of words written over time taken to complete the description, and an AI-generated measure of word quality.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Worker mood, probability of working
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Worker endline mood measures on a 1-5 scale will be compared to baseline measures to understand effects on subject subjective wellbeing. Probability of workers making a work selection (relative to their outside option of skipping a round and earning no round payment) will also be computed.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Subjects will take baseline and endline questionnaires, make work choices, and complete work.
Experimental Design Details
Subjects will report baseline and endline mood measures and report their relative and absolute preferences for different work tasks on a dimension of meaningfulness either before or after making work choices. For each round of work choice, subjects will make their selection with complete information about the work requirements and payment for work and will then have 60 seconds to complete the work. This will repeat for 5 rounds. A randomized round will be chosen to pay a subject their reported wage at the conclusion of the experiment, in addition to base pay in line with Prolific guidelines. Subjects will finally complete exit interview questions before leaving the experiment.
Randomization Method
Computer randomization via Qualtrics
Randomization Unit
Subject-level randomization
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2000 subjects
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000 subjects
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Rate before, mission, no training round: 250 subjects
Rate before, no mission, training round: 250 subjects
Rate before, mission, training round: 250 subjects
Rate before, no mission, no training round: 250 subjects
Rate after, mission, no training round: 250 subjects
Rate after, no mission, training round: 250 subjects
Rate after, mission, training round: 250 subjects
Rate after, no mission, no training round: 250 subjects
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UC Davis IRB Administration
IRB Approval Date
2025-03-10
IRB Approval Number
2225085-2
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
October 20, 2025, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
October 20, 2025, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
387 subjects
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
387 subjects
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Awareness treatment 183 subjects, Null control 204 subjects
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
I develop a novel online experiment with 387 subjects on Prolific and simple utility model to examine how workers respond to reported work meaning. Workers appear to value different aspects of work and be willing to give up other incentives for their best work match. 31% of workers appear not to value meaning in their work, 27% appear not to value work pay, 30% appear to value both, and 12% cannot be characterized. Overall, 57% of workers are willing to sacrifice up to 14% of possible pay in their pursuit of meaningful work. For workers who value work meaning, I estimate positive impacts of meaningfulness on the quantity and quality of output, although these effects appear only for a task with prosocial framing. Finally, I validate a light-touch treatment designed to increase worker awareness of the value they place on meaning, again finding effects only for workers who seek meaning in their work. Importantly, raising worker awareness of work meaning has no impact on the types of incentives they seek out. These results offer insights into how such interventions and preferences for work meaning might be leveraged in organizational settings.
Citation
Beauregard, Remy, Paid With(out) Purpose: Perceptions, Preferences, and the Meaning of Work (November 27, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5676482 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5676482
URL
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5676482

Reports & Other Materials