AEA RCT Registry

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Registration

Field	Before	After
Abstract	This pre-registration outlines a randomized controlled trial testing whether stress constrains information acquisition among 1,200 low-income parents of kindergarteners in Mumbai. The experiment implements a 2x2 factorial design: parents receive either (i) a stress-relief breathing routine (with a tactile bracelet cue) or a bracelet-only control condition, and (ii) daily curiosity prompts that vary in signal precision---high-precision prompts elicit bounded, verifiable responses (e.g., counting, binary choices), while low-precision prompts require open-ended interpretation (e.g., ``why'' or ``how'' questions). This design isolates whether stress disproportionately impairs the processing of ambiguous signals. I pre-register four confirmatory hypotheses on emotional regulation, belief updating accuracy, engagement and habit formation, and a focal Stress x Precision interaction testing whether stress reduction helps parents extract value from harder-to-interpret information. The plan specifies sampling (N=1,200 across ~20 schools), interventions (delivered via tactile bracelet cues and physical card decks), timeline (24 weeks with midline at Week 12), power calculations (accounting for 20-25% attrition), and intent-to-treat estimation using ANCOVA with pre-specified indices, mechanisms, heterogeneity tests, and treatment-on-the-treated estimates. Multiple-testing corrections, robustness checks, and attrition-bounding procedures are detailed. All curiosity activity prompts and their information-cost coding rules (Dimensions A--E) are included as appendices.	Money worries, crowded homes and long working days can leave people with little mental energy to spare. This study asks whether everyday stress makes it harder for parents to pick up information about their young children, and whether easing stress helps. We work with about 800 parents of pre-primary children at low-fee and municipal schools in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Some parents learn a short breathing routine, cued by a beaded bracelet; others receive the same bracelet as a thank-you gift. Every parent receives a deck of daily conversation cards to use with their child: some cards invite answers that are easy to check, such as counting or naming, while others ask open-ended “why” questions. Over about six months, we measure how parents’ views of their child change, their stress, and how they use the cards. A companion study with other caregivers uses a tablet game to see how mental load affects attention. The aim is to understand when stress gets in the way of learning.
Trial End Date	March 31, 2027	August 31, 2027
Last Published	September 07, 2026 09:43 AM	October 11, 2026 11:15 AM
Primary Outcomes (End Points)	Measurement done at week 24 is the primary endpoint.	Measurement done at week 26 is the primary endpoint.
Experimental Design (Public)	The experiment is a 2x2 design which cross randomizes a stress relief intervention with a signal precision intervention in a sample of approx 1200 low-income individuals in an urban Indian sample.	The experiment is a 2x2 design which cross randomizes a stress relief intervention with a signal precision intervention in a sample of approx 800 low-income individuals in an urban Indian sample.
Planned Number of Observations	1200 parents of kindergartner children.	800 parents of kindergartner children.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms	300 parents in the stress relief + high precision information arm, 300 parents in the stress relief + low precision information arm, 300 parents in the placebo + high precision information arm and 300 parents in the placebo + low precision information arm.	200 parents in the stress relief + high precision information arm, 200 parents in the stress relief + low precision information arm, 200 parents in the placebo + high precision information arm and 200 parents in the placebo + low precision information arm.