Belief Updating and Backfire across Social Groups: Behavioral Interventions in Chinese Gig Workers

Last registered on July 13, 2026
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Belief Updating and Backfire across Social Groups: Behavioral Interventions in Chinese Gig Workers
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019113
Initial registration date
July 07, 2026

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
July 13, 2026, 7:33 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country
China
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Tenghui Wang
Affiliation
Lingnan University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Qiao Liu
PI Affiliation
Peking University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Juanjuan Meng
PI Affiliation
Peking University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Zheng Zhang
PI Affiliation
Peking University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2021-03-01
End date
2021-03-12
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
Program take-up, Nudge, Backfire, Social groups, Gig workers
JEL code(s)
C93, D91, I38, M38
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Many public programs, such as retirement savings, social welfare, and housing assistance, suffer from persistently low take-up despite substantial policy effort. And behavioral interventions are widely used for increasing the take-up rates. We conducted a megastudy among 21,000 Chinese gig workers, testing ten behavioral interventions on their enrollment intentions in a hypothetical public housing provident fund program. Based on the different social groups' potential benefits from the program, we tested the heterogeneous treatment effects across four social groups: local-urban, local-rural, nonlocal-urban and nonlocal-rural. We examined differential belief updating mechanism as potential explanations for the differential responses across the four social groups.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Liu, Qiao et al. 2026. "Belief Updating and Backfire across Social Groups: Behavioral Interventions in Chinese Gig Workers ." AEA RCT Registry. July 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19113-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our study implemented ten distinct treatments, grouped into two categories: behavioral interventions (seven treatments) and program feature interventions (three treatments). Motivated by social identity, information updating, complexity and limited attention literature, we implemented resident identity, policy difference, favorable statistics, unfavorable statistics, example, formal statement, housing prices treatments. Program feature interventions include decreased loanable amount, rental subsidies, and hukou point treatments.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2021-03-11
Intervention End Date
2021-03-12

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The respondents' willingness to participate in the proposed housing provident fund program (gig workers), including “very unwilling”, “somewhat unwilling”, “neutral”, “somewhat willing”, and “very willing”.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We use a 1-5 scale score to proxy willingness score.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The survey experiment consisted of ten treatments and one control groups, and it was conducted on the Alipay platform in ten cities of China. We randomly distributed our questionnaire on the front page of Alipay, under the title: “Alipay sincerely invites you to complete a questionnaire about the Housing Provident Fund for gig workers.” Unlike typical online surveys on commercial survey platforms where respondents self-select in exchange for monetary incentives, we offered no financial rewards. Instead, participants were clearly informed at the outset that the survey was conducted by a research team at Peking University to understand gig workers’ views on the HPF-GW program and housing-related issues.

Our survey experiment consisted of three parts: (1) demographic background information, such as age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, income, consumption, and debt; (2) current living conditions and housing demand, including housing ownership status, living conditions, monthly rent or loan payments, and commute distance; and (3) a hypothetical HPF-GW program, but modeled on typical terms currently offered to gig workers in reality under existing policies with elicitation of willingness to participate. We provided a baseline program description to control groups, and different treatments were applied during the introduction of the program in Part (3).
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done by Alipay.
Randomization Unit
Individual. Within each of the 10 cities, eligible users were randomly assigned by the platform’s randomization procedure to one of 11 survey versions, including one control arm and ten treatment arms. Each user received only one survey version. City was used as a stratification/blocking variable, not as the unit of treatment assignment.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Not applicable. Treatment was randomized at the individual-user level.
Sample size: planned number of observations
20,864 responses from gig workers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2176 respondents control, 2114 respondents resident identity treatment, 1801 respondents policy difference treatment, 1768 respondents favorable statistics treatment, 1841 respondents unfavorable statistics treatment, 1769 respondents example treatment, 1834 respondents formal statement treatment, 1752 respondents housing prices treatment, 2052 respondents decreased loanable amount, 1877 respondents rental subsidies, and 1880 respondents hukou point treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Guanghua School of Management, Peking University
IRB Approval Date
2026-03-11
IRB Approval Number
This is a Retrospective Ethics Review which indicates ethical exemption status.
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
March 12, 2021, 12:00 AM +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
March 12, 2021, 12:00 AM +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
20,864 responses from gig workers.
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
20,864 responses from gig workers.
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
2176 respondents control, 2114 respondents resident identity treatment, 1801 respondents policy difference treatment, 1768 respondents favorable statistics treatment, 1841 respondents unfavorable statistics treatment, 1769 respondents example treatment, 1834 respondents formal statement treatment, 1752 respondents housing prices treatment, 2052 respondents decreased loanable amount, 1877 respondents rental subsidies, and 1880 respondents hukou point treatment.
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials