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Responding to Positive and Negative Past Interactions_Online

Last registered on May 21, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Responding to Positive and Negative Past Interactions_Online
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0016047
Initial registration date
May 19, 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
May 21, 2025, 3:46 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Till Wicker
Affiliation
Tilburg University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-05-23
End date
2025-06-13
Keywords
Behavior, Labor
Additional Keywords
Discrimination
JEL code(s)
D91, J71
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Discrimination is widespread across the world, and a variety of contexts. Discrimination has further been widely studied through the use of field experiments (for an overview, see Bertrand and Duflo, 2017), with two dominant theories emerging: taste-based (Becker, 1957) and statistical discrimination (Phelps, 1972; Arrow, 1973). However, the study of discrimination thus far in the literature has been static: studies have looked at one-off interactions and the response to discrimination in those. Past work in Uganda (IRB FUL 2024-015) has illustrated that discrimination among refugees and Ugandans is dynamic in the sense that past interactions influence discriminatory behavior in the future. In particular, perceived negative discrimination in the past increased the likelihood of negative discrimination in the future. This is not the case with positive discrimination. The aim of this project is to document the persistence of discrimination among a different sub-population, and identify the mechanisms more cleanly through different sub-treatments. I have since developed a theoretical model to rationalize these results, which creates novel predictions that this new project will test.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Wicker, Till. 2025. "Responding to Positive and Negative Past Interactions_Online." AEA RCT Registry. May 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16047-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
There are two main interventions, which only differ in the first round of the game. In the first treatment, the manager allocating a task will be a man. In the second treatment, the manager is a woman, signaled by their pseudo-names.

Several sub-treatments will also be run, to explore mechanisms in greater detail. These include:
1) introducing a third stage, where participants will have 1 minute time to solve as many tasks as possible. The name of the manager in this stage is disclosed to the participants. This is to test for micro-foundations of anticipated discrimination.
2) High vs. low stakes. Participants get paid $0.10 per completed task in the normal set-up. This will be doubled to $0.20 per completed task. 3) Bystander in round 1. Rather than actively completing tasks, the participant is an observer when a manager delegates tasks between two workers.
4) Dictator game: rather than dividing tasks, money is divided by the manager to the two workers based on the dictator game.
5) Roles reversed: experiment is played with men, instead of women, and all roles are reversed.
6) Belief elicitation: beliefs of the participant at all stages of the game are elicited (beliefs on productivity, beliefs on allocations, fairness, equality, etc.).
7) Math-based task: rather than the task being text-based, it is math-based (thus making gender-based discrimination more salient).
8) Social image: during the second round of the game, participants are informed that two other players will observe their allocations, and will subsequently make a money-allocation decision between themselves and the participant.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2025-05-23
Intervention End Date
2025-06-13

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Allocation of tasks across workers in second stage.
Time taken to complete task in first stage.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A lab experiment will be conducted on Prolific. Individuals will be randomized across two treatments.
The first treatment consists of 2 rounds. In the first round, the participant is a worker, whom a manager has assigned a task to. The manager had to divide 8 text entry tasks across two workers. Both the manager and the other worker are real people and men from the USA, while the participant of the study is a woman from the USA.
In the second round, the participant now becomes the manager, and has to divide 8 text entry tasks between two workers. One of the workers is a woman, while the other is a man.
The second treatment consists of 2 rounds as well. Round 2 is identical to treatment 1. The only difference is in round 1. Rather than the manager being a man, the manager is now a woman. Gender is signaled through their names.
The allocation of tasks is pre-determined, based on data from a pilot study.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization is done via qualtrics
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Same as the number of observations
Sample size: planned number of observations
100 observations per treatment arm.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
100 observations per treatment arm. Fewer for the sub-samples
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
TiSEM Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2025-05-02
IRB Approval Number
TiSEM_RP2233
Analysis Plan

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