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Xenophobia and Social Desirability: MTurk Online Survey

Last registered on October 30, 2016

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Xenophobia and Social Desirability: MTurk Online Survey
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001752
Initial registration date
October 30, 2016

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
October 30, 2016, 6:03 PM EDT

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

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Bocconi University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Chicago

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2016-10-31
End date
2016-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We will recruit survey participants on MTurk to conduct an online survey. With this survey, we plan to study 1) whether participants under-report xenophobic sentiments due to their social undesirability, and 2) whether the social undesirability is reduced by knowing that a large proportion of the population support a presidential candidate with xenophobic views.
First, all subject will answer a few demographic questions. Second, they will be randomized into two groups. Subjects in the control group will receive no information. Subjects in the treatment group will be told what is the probability of a presidential candidate with xenophobic views to win the next election: our hypothesis is that knowing that the presidential candidate has large support, will lead subjects to revise their belief about the social undesirability of expressing xenophobic sentiments. We will collect evidence about this by asking subjects in both group how many people they think hold xenophobic sentiments in their state. Third, to test our two hypothesis, we will measure subjects willingness to donate money to an immigration-reduction organization. Customers will be randomized into two groups: in one group we will emphasize that their decision is private; in the other group we will tell subjects that "a member of the research team might personally contact you to verify your answers", thus making the decision to be perceived as public. We will test our hypothesis by comparing the donation decisions of subjects in the four (2x2) experimental groups.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bursztyn, Leonardo and Stefano Fiorin. 2016. "Xenophobia and Social Desirability: MTurk Online Survey ." AEA RCT Registry. October 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1752-1.0
Former Citation
Bursztyn, Leonardo and Stefano Fiorin. 2016. "Xenophobia and Social Desirability: MTurk Online Survey ." AEA RCT Registry. October 30. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1752/history/11536
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2016-10-31
Intervention End Date
2016-11-07

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Beliefs about the share of people holding xenophobic sentiments. Donation decisions.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Beliefs about the share of people holding xenophobic sentiments is the answer to the following question.

From 0 to 100, what share of people in the population of [state] do you think agrees with the following statement?
“Both legal and illegal immigration should be drastically reduced because immigrants undermine American culture and do not respect American values.”

Donation decisions are the answer to the following question.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is an immigration-reduction organization of concerned individuals who believe that immigration laws must be reformed and seeks to reduce overall immigration (both legal and illegal) into the United States. The founder of FAIR is John Tanton, author of “The Immigration Invasion” who wrote “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
Would you like to have us donate $1 on your behalf to the Federation for American Immigration Reform?
If you decide to have $1 donated to the immigration-reduction organization FAIR, we will also transfer $1 extra to your MTurk account. So, if you decide to donate, instead of $0.50 you will be paid in total $1.50. If instead you prefer not to donate, you will be paid only $0.50 for completing the survey.
So would you like to have us donate $1 on your behalf to the Federation for American Immigration Reform?

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will recruit survey participants on MTurk to conduct an online survey. First, all subject will answer a few demographic questions. Second, they will be randomized into two groups. Subjects in the control group will receive no information. Subjects in the treatment group will be told what is the probability of a presidential candidate with xenophobic views to win the next election. Third, we will elicit subjects beliefs about how many people they think hold xenophobic sentiments in their state. Fourth, we will measure subjects willingness to donate money to an immigration-reduction organization. Customers will be randomized into two groups: in one group (private) we will emphasize that their decision is private; in the other group (public) we will tell subjects that "a member of the research team might personally contact you to verify your answers", thus making the decision to be perceived as public.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The randomization will be done on Qualtrics, a website for conducting online surveys.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization will be the individual subject.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
400 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
100 subjects control private, 100 subjects control public, 100 subjects treated private, 100 subjects treated public.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
N/A
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UCLA IRB
IRB Approval Date
2016-10-26
IRB Approval Number
IRB#16-001667

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