The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through - Online Study

In Part 1, study participants will complete three digitization tasks. At the end of the digitization tasks, they are informed that they can sign up for the opportunity to return tomorrow to complete the same tasks (Part 2). Participants are randomized into two main treatments:

1. Less effort - these participants simply indicate yes or no whether they want to sign up for tomorrow.
2. More effort - these participants must fill out a 15-question survey if they want to sign up for tomorrow.

In addition to the main treatments, participants are cross-randomized into a set of other treatments designed to study the mechanism behind the effect:

1. Social: Participants are informed that if they choose to return, their bonus rate in Part 2 will depend on either how many other people return (Social - Quantitative) or how well other people do (Social - Quality).
2. Volunteer: Participants are informed that if they choose to return, their earnings in Part 2 will be donated to a charity of their choice. They will have a list of charity options in Part 2.
3. Reminder: Participants who sign up for Part 2 will receive an additional email reminder that Part 2 is now available.

2025-03-12

2025-03-19

% of people who return to Part 2

- Effort rate in Part 2: how many letters they attempt to fill in.
- Accuracy rate in Part 2: how accurately they fill in letters.
- Amount of bonus payment they are willing to accept to forgo the return opportunity.

We will invite study participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk.

PART 1:
Part 1 of the study consists of 4 parts, described below.

(1) Task instructions and understanding questions:
Participants will be presented with the task instructions. The task asks participants to digitize sets of 35 “fuzzy greek letters" (as used in Augenblick, Niederle, & Sprenger, 2015; Augenblick & Rabin, 2019). Three out of a total of fifty sets of fuzzy greek letters will be randomly presented to each participant. of In order to correctly digitize a fuzzy greek letter, participants must click on the correct corresponding greek letter in the survey. Participants are told that they do not need to complete each set, but that in order to get a bonus payment, they must get 80%, or at least 28 of the 35 letters, correct. After instructions, participants are required to complete three understanding questions before they proceed to the main task. They can repeat these until they get them right.

(2) Main task:
Participants are then presented with three digitization task (where they must click next after completing task 1 to be presented with task 2, then task 3).

(3) Sign-up for return opportunity:
Participants are asked if they would like to sign up for a return opportunity tomorrow, which they are told will involve the same digitization tasks and will be available from 9am-5pm Eastern Time tomorrow. They are also told that regardless of their choice, they have already earned their guaranteed payment and bonus payment for today. The rest of the instructions differ slightly depending on which treatment groups they are in:

MAIN TREATMENTS:
- Less Effort: "If you would like to receive access to tomorrow's return opportunity, please click yes. Otherwise, click no."
- More effort: "If you would like to receive access to tomorrow's return opportunity, please click yes. This will take you to an additional 15-question survey on the next page. Otherwise, click no." On the survey page, participants can review the questions and change their mind (i.e., decide not to complete the questions, and not sign up for the return opportunity).

SOCIAL:
- No social: "Tomorrow, you can earn the same amount of money as today. Both the guaranteed payment and the bonus payment will be calculated the same."
- Social - quantitative: "You can earn the same guaranteed payment as today. However, the bonus will be calculated differently. Tomorrow, the more people who return, the higher your bonus will be."
- Social - qualitative: "You can earn the same guaranteed payment as today. However, the bonus will be calculated differently. Tomorrow, the more accurate the other people are, the higher your bonus will be."

VOLUNTEER:
- Volunteer: "Tomorrow, you can complete the same tasks as today, but as a volunteer opportunity. The money you earn will be donated to a charity of your choice."

NO REMINDER VS. REMINDER:
- No reminder: Participants do not receive a reminder email.
- Reminder: Participants receive a reminder email at 9am Eastern Time, when Part 2 goes live.

(4) Willingness to pay: After completing sign-up, participants are asked about their willingness to accept a bonus payment in order to forego the return opportunity tomorrow using a multiple price list. This involves choosing between increasing values of an additional bonus payment now in order to forgo the return opportunity tomorrow, with one of their choices being randomly implemented.

They are then brought to the end of the survey.

PART 2:
As explained to study participants, Part 2 is available on the Amazon Mechanical Turk Platform from 9am to 5pm Eastern Time. It consists of two sections:

1. Instructions: Participants will be presented with the task instructions. The task instructions are the same as in Part 1.
2. Main task: Participants will then be presented with the digitization tasks. The tasks are the same as in Part 1.

Not available

Randomization conducted automatically in Qualtrics, with equal amounts of participants assigned to each group

Individual

No

0

500 participants to Part 1 or until one week has passed. The study will only be active on weekdays, so that Part 1 will only be conducted Monday-Thursday, and Part 2 will only be conducted Tuesday-Friday.

1. No social - paid - no reminder ~ 40
2. No social - volunteer - no reminder ~ 40
3. No social - paid - reminder ~ 40
4. No social - volunteer - reminder ~ 40
5. Social quant - paid - no reminder ~ 40
6. Social quant - volunteer - no reminder ~ 40
7. Social quant - paid - reminder ~ 40
8. Social quant - volunteer - reminder ~ 40
9. Social qual - paid - no reminder ~ 40
10. Social qual - volunteer - no reminder ~ 40
11. Social qual- paid - reminder ~ 40
12. Social qual - volunteer - reminder ~ 40