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Trial Status
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Before
on_going
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After
in_development
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Abstract
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Before
This study examines the impact of altruistic priming on individuals’ risk tolerance. Utilizing an online experimental design, participants are randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group. Those in the treatment group are exposed to an altruism-themed video, while those in the control group view a neutral video. The altruism video has been pre-validated in a laboratory setting. Following the priming, all participants complete a staircase task to measure their risk tolerance. Finally, we elicit participants’ emotional states to explore whether emotions mediate the effect of the altruistic stimulus on risk-taking behavior.
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After
This study examines the impact of altruistic priming on individuals’ risk tolerance. Utilizing an online experimental design, participants are randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group. Those in the treatment group are exposed to a validated altruism-themed video, while those in the control group view a neutral video. The altruism video has been pre-validated in a laboratory setting. Following the priming, we elicit participants’ emotional states, Finally, all participants complete an incentivized staircase task to measure their risk tolerance. The primary outcome is a risk-tolerance measure derived from the staircase task, and we assess whether emotions mediate the effect of altruistic priming on risk tolerance.
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Trial Start Date
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Before
April 27, 2025
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After
January 18, 2026
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Trial End Date
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Before
May 31, 2025
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After
June 30, 2026
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JEL Code(s)
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Before
G41, C9
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After
D8, D64, C91
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Last Published
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Before
April 30, 2025 01:50 PM
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After
January 17, 2026 01:58 PM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
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After
Participants are randomly assigned to watch one of two short videos. The treatment video is designed to activate an altruism mindset, while the control video is neutral in content. All participants then complete the same follow-up survey measures and incentivized decision tasks.
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Intervention Start Date
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Before
April 29, 2025
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January 18, 2026
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Intervention End Date
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Before
May 31, 2025
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January 19, 2026
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Risk tolerance
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Average of standardized subjective risk (0–10) and staircase risk measure.
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
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After
We form a weighted average of our two measures of risk tolerance using weights of 47.3% for self-assessed risk tolerance and 52.7% for the lottery-based task, with the weights coming from the Global Preference Survey of Falk et al. (2016, 2018)
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
This study employs video-based priming interventions to examine the effects of altruism and materialism on decision-making. The experiment consists of two groups:
Control Group: Participants in this group receive no priming.
Altruism Treatment Group: Participants view a pre-validated video designed to prime altruistic attitudes
The videos used for priming have been validated in a pre-test to ensure their effectiveness in eliciting the desired mindsets. Following the priming intervention (or lack thereof in the control group), all participants complete staircase tasks to measure their risk tolerance. We elicit participants’ emotional states to explore whether emotions mediate the effect of the altruistic stimulus on risk-taking behavior.
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After
Online individual-level randomized controlled trial with two arms. Participants are randomly assigned (1:1) to view either an altruism-themed video (treatment) or a neutral video (control). Immediately after exposure, participants report state emotions. Participants then complete standardized measures of risk tolerance, including an incentivized monetary staircase lottery task. The primary outcome is a composite risk index, and the analysis assesses whether emotions mediate the effect of altruistic priming on risk tolerance.
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Randomization Method
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Before
Prolific recruits and Qualtrics automatically randomizes the sample to treatment and control
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After
Individual-level random assignment is implemented by Qualtrics’ built-in randomizer with equal probability (1:1) to the altruism video prime or the neutral control video.
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Randomization Unit
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Individuals
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Individual participant (online subject)
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Planned Number of Clusters
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500 individuals
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800 individuals (individual-level randomization)
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Planned Number of Observations
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500
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800 individuals
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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250 control, 250 treatment
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Altruism group: 400 participants; Control: 400 participants
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Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Before
Power analysis conducted using G*Power for a one-way ANOVA (used here as the parametric equivalent for estimating power for a Kruskal-Wallis test). With a total sample size of 500 participants divided evenly across 2 groups, and a significance level of α = 0.05, the analysis shows that the minimum detectable effect size (MDES) is 0.25 for 80% statistical power, and 0.29 for 90% statistical power.
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After
Using the pilot estimate of the primary composite risk preference index’s variability (pooled SD ≈ 0.735), the minimum detectable effect for a two-sided test with α = 0.05 and 80% power is ≈ 0.103. This corresponds to approximately 0.140 SD.
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Additional Keyword(s)
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Before
Altruism, Risk tolerance, Emotions
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After
altruism, priming, emotions, risk preferences, behavioral finance, experimental economics, online experiment, Prolific, Qualtrics, mediation
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Keyword(s)
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Before
Behavior, Finance
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After
Behavior, Finance, Lab
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Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
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Treatment arm (Altruism prime): Participants view a 57-second altruism-themed video clip depicting prosocial content intended to activate an altruistic mindset. This altruism stimulus was selected based on prior laboratory validation using physiological responses (skin conductance response (SCR) and pulse rate (PR)) and subjective evaluations.
Control arm (Neutral): Participants view a 57-second neutral video clip matched in length and format but without prosocial/moral content. The specific control stimulus will be selected based on a separate stimulus-validation pretest
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
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State emotions measured happiness, fear, anger, guilt.
Altruism Index
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Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
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After
Emotion variables are recorded on 0–100 sliders. Based on Meier, (2022), a “net happiness” index will be constructed as ((Happiness − Sadness)/2) + 50 to retain a 0–100 range. The post-task altruism index follows the Falk et al.(2016, 2018) GPS (willingness to give and hypothetical donation).
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