Exogenous and Endogenous Social Reference Points

Last registered on February 03, 2023

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Exogenous and Endogenous Social Reference Points

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0003217

Initial registration date

August 06, 2018

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

August 09, 2018, 1:43 AM EDT

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

Last updated

February 03, 2023, 11:24 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Switzerland

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Julien Senn

Affiliation

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

PI Affiliation

PI Name

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2018-08-08

End date

2018-10-10

Keywords

Labor

Additional Keywords

Lab experiment, Social Reference points, Effort provision, motivation

JEL code(s)

C91, J24, L23

Secondary IDs

Prior work

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

Abstract

This document describes the design and the analysis plan for an experiment aimed at evaluating the effects of social reference points on effort provision. In the context of our study, social reference points are understood as peers with which individuals compare themselves.
Broadly speaking, our experiment is aimed at better understanding a) whether exogenously assigned social reference points affect performance, b) whether endogenously chosen social reference points affect performance differently than exogenously assigned social reference points, c) how people choose their social reference points, and d) how social reference points compare to and interact with incentives. We also plan to study heterogeneity in treatment effects along several dimensions.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Schmitz, Jan, Julien Senn and Christian Zehnder. 2023. "Exogenous and Endogenous Social Reference Points." AEA RCT Registry. February 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3217-1.1

Former Citation

Schmitz, Jan, Julien Senn and Christian Zehnder. 2023. "Exogenous and Endogenous Social Reference Points." AEA RCT Registry. February 03. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3217/history/170647

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

After Amazon Mechanical Turk users click select our task, they are randomized into different social reference points treatments.

Intervention (Hidden)

See PDF attached for more details

Intervention Start Date

2018-08-08

Intervention End Date

2018-10-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The key outcome variable is the number of points scored by the subject in round 2 of the experiment (effort2), where each point is scored as a result of pressing ‘a’ then ‘b’. Additionally, for each subject, we store data on their button presses over time. We will also use transformations of the key outcome variables: we will a zscore it, i.e. z(effort2). We will also look at the relative increase in performance between round 1 and round 2, i.e. (effort2-effort1)/effort1.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

We will also investigate whether the dierent treatments aect the probability of im-
proving performance. To that end, we will replace the dependend variable in the analysis
described above by a dummy variable taking value 1 if performance improves between
period 1 and period 2, and 0 otherwise.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Subjects will choose to participate in this study by selecting it on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. Before the participants choose to participate, they will be provided with a brief description of the study; which also tells a guaranteed flat-pay for successful submission and a time estimate for completion. Once in the survey, participants will fill out a brief set of questions providing demographic information like age, sex, and education. After this, participants will be directed to complete a button pressing task for 5 minutes (round 1). The task is consists of pressing the 'a' and 'b' as often as possible, within a given time period (5 minutes). After that, they are randomized to one of the treatments. In the different treatments, we manipulate social reference points and/or monetary incentives. Participants have to complete a second round of 5 minutes of the a-b pressing task. There is no deception at any point in this task.

Experimental Design Details

More details in the PDF attached.

Randomization Method

Computer assigns individuals to treatments.

Randomization Unit

individual subject

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Please see below. The number of clusters is the same as the number of observations.

Sample size: planned number of observations

We plan to recruit 6500 participants in total (ideal). We want to reach a sample of • 500 subjects per treatment for the treatments EXO-NO, EXO-LO, EXO-MID, EXO-HI, EXO-BEST, EXOBEST&PIECERATE, PIECERATE • 1000 subjects per treatment for the treatments RANKONLY, ENDO, ENDO&PIECERATE so as to attain sufficiently precise estimates of the productivity per treatment.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

It was determined that we wanted to reach a sample of at least 500 subjects per so as to attain sufficiently precise estimates of the productivity per treatment (in some cases, we have 1000 participants in one treatment, see above and PDF attached for details).

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

In DellaVigna and Pope (What motivates effort? REStud 2017), participants perform the same task for 10 consecutive minutes. They report an average number of clicks of 1936 and a standard deviation of 668 (for the treatment with no piece rate, the average is 1550 and the standard deviation is 720). In our experiment, task duration is set to 5 minutes. We therefore expect an average performance of about 900 and a standard deviation of approximately 350. Assuming that this is approximately the standard deviation of each treatment in the experiment and assuming a sample of 500 per treatment, we have a power of 80% to reject the null hypothesis of zero difference in average points between two treatments when the actual difference between the two treatments is 62 points (an effect size much smaller than what is documented in DellaVigna and Pope).

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB