The Effects of Legal Information on Public Support for Disability Rights in China

Last registered on December 09, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

The Effects of Legal Information on Public Support for Disability Rights in China

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0017427

Initial registration date

December 08, 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

December 09, 2025, 8:21 AM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Mercy Renci Xie

Affiliation

Syracuse University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2025-10-15

End date

2027-05-31

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

law, opinion, online behavior

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Survey experiments show that Americans are more likely to support pro–human rights policies when they know that such policies align with international legal standards. It remains unclear whether such positive effects persist in Asian societies. In addition, although disabled people account for 16% of the world’s population, none of the existing studies has tested the effect of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the international human rights treaty that protects the rights of disabled people. This project uses an online survey experiment in China to test the effect of the CRPD and domestic disability law on non-disabled people’s support for disability rights implementation.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Xie, Mercy Renci. 2025. "The Effects of Legal Information on Public Support for Disability Rights in China." AEA RCT Registry. December 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17427-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Different source of legal information (international vs. domestic disability law, or both) and whether disability rights implementation benefit nondisabled people .

Intervention Start Date

2025-11-02

Intervention End Date

2025-12-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Support for disability rights implementation (measured by 7-point Likert scale)

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Willingness to express online about the disability rights implementation issue.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

This dependent variable will be measured by 5 items (only if Cronbach alpha is larger than 0.7) that ask different methods of expressing).

Experimental Design

Respondents were told that their cities were considering removing all narrow bollards from public sidewalks, accompanied by a picture showing what these bollards look like. They were then presented with both opponents’ and supporters’ opinions. The opponents’ arguments were the same across conditions, citing public safety concerns. The supporters’ arguments focused on accessibility for disabled people but varied by the type of legal information provided (international, domestic, both, or none) and by whether nondisabled people also benefit from accessible sidewalks.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

The treatment conditions (legal information) were randomized using the internal randomization function of the online questionnaire distribution platform.

Randomization Unit

The unit of randomization is individuals.

Was the treatment clustered?