Encouraging low-carbon Food Consumption using Collaborative Game-Mechanisms

Last registered on May 12, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Encouraging low-carbon Food Consumption using Collaborative Game-Mechanisms
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003643
Initial registration date
December 17, 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
December 21, 2018, 12:22 PM EST

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

Last updated
May 12, 2020, 3:55 AM EDT

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

Locations

Region
Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Kassel

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Kassel

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2018-10-04
End date
2020-07-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The study comprises a field experiment using gamification in order to encourage individuals to consume food in a more climate-friendly way. The digital game-app Carbonia features collaborative social interaction mechanisms and is played among university friends. We aim to analyze how the game interacts with the structural evolution of the friendship network of the participants and the network mechanisms that influence dietary choices.

Given that the reduction of meat and dairy products is seen as an important part of climate mitigation activities necessary to achieve the 2-degree climate target (e.g. Bryngelsson et al., 2016; Girod et al., 2014), private food choices can actively contribute to climate change mitigation efforts.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Köbrich León, Anja and Janosch Schobin. 2020. "Encouraging low-carbon Food Consumption using Collaborative Game-Mechanisms ." AEA RCT Registry. May 12. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3643-4.0
Former Citation
Köbrich León, Anja and Janosch Schobin. 2020. "Encouraging low-carbon Food Consumption using Collaborative Game-Mechanisms ." AEA RCT Registry. May 12. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3643/history/68003
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Given that food intake was shown to be a social action and that mitigating GHG emissions is a “collective risk social dilemma” since “[r]eaching the collective target requires individual sacrifice” (Minski et al., 2008, p. 2291), we develop a digital social interaction game: Carbonia. The game is intended to do exactly that: individual actions regarding low-carbon food consumption must be coordinated in order to achieve a common goal, namely to save Carbonia from destruction. This is only possible if the individual climate-relevant food decisions are coordinated.
Game description: Humans arrive at an unexplored planet. They start building farms and grow animals through ingredients obtained by uploading images of real meals and evaluating them. The abstract animals protect the farms in the game world. Several times a day monsters arrive to destroy the works of the people. The world of all players is connected, so they can go down together, if the monsters are successful. The players get resources by uploading pictures of their meals and rate others. These resources are used to build and improve animals that defend the players. Through these operations, conclusions on behavior can be drawn, when the game mechanism is accepted by the players. This game is played in the landscape-modus on a smartphone The success of the game is based on the interaction of the players and the uploading of food images. The game is a circular process. Meals that the players eat should be photographed and uploaded. Then the player should indicate the composition of the food by evaluating the proportions of the three main ingredients. Players can choose from 16 food categories, divided into 4 main categories (meat, cereals, vegetables and dairy products).
Summing up the social game Carbonia does not manipulate the information presented to citizens to change their attitudes and behavior without asking them for their consent, such as nudges; but, if consented to, it reorganizes the information presented to the players in a way that is beneficial for changing their attitudes and their behavior without necessarily being transparent in this effort. This makes our approach different from governance instruments such as educational campaigns that are based on the transparent presentation of relevant information to the citizens. Social games, such as Carbonia, can thus be understood as a new semi-paternalistic, highly scalable, participative governance instrument based on consented manipulation that allows designing policies to face global change.
The game intervention is further accompanied by a panel network intervention study in order to assess the mechanics and (individual) factors driving the behavioral change. We are thus able to link individual decision making and game behavior to individual characteristics as well as to changes in the social network of the individuals.
Intervention Start Date
2020-05-13
Intervention End Date
2020-05-27

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Mainly three points
1. Evolving low-carbon food choices / curtailment behavior and efficiency knowledge with regard to climate relevance of food in network
2. Effect of the intervention
3. Spill-over of individual behavior
For the intervention study dependent variables are either food choices (measured by a discrete choice experiment (DCE)) or individual knowledge (assed through a self-assed knowledge test on efficiency of food choices in order to mitigate CO2e emissions.
Explanatory variables contain demographic information (age, gender) friendship (number of friends within / outside university, meat eating behavior of friends, connectedness to friends) as well as individual preferences (risk, trust, self-esteem, environmental attitudes and locus of control).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
• The eating behavior/food knowledge of friends influences egos behavior (social influence process).
• Similarity in eating behavior/ food knowledge makes friendship ties between alter and ego more likely by making ties more durable once they have been established (selection process by similarity endowment).
• There are unobserved time constant confounders of the social influence and the social selection process.
• There are no unobserved time varying confounders of the social influence and the social selection process.
• We assume that the causal effect between the social network (via the selection process) and the individual behavior/knowledge (via the influence process) are cross-lagged, i.e. they are not simultaneous.
• There is the possibility of two sided non-compliance, i.e. people can reject the treatment and people who were not intended to be treated can get the treatment
• The two-sided non-compliance is influenced by decisions of ego’s friends to accept or reject the treatment: the more friends are offered the treatment, the more a person will try to obtain it too and the more inclined they will be to accept it.
• The two-sided non-compliance can be affected by an unobserved time constant confounder that affects the outcome variable and the network selection process.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Observational Study:
All master students of the University of Kassel as well as bachelor students from two Chilean universities have the possibility to take part in the survey.

Intervention (natural field experiment as a randomized trial with non-compliance)
Participants of the survey are randomly assigned to one out of two treatment groups in equal shares done in office by a computer. Treatment group one has the possibility to play the game. The second group is provided with a digital food diary. The control group receives a non-food related survey task.

Spillover-Experiment (Framed field experiment as a randomized trial)
Using a factorial-design, participants of the survey are randomly assigned to one out of two groups. The first group has to decide how much of their real-money endowment, which they can win with a probability of 1:20, they want to give to an environmental origination. In a second giving experiment afterward, they have again to decide on how much of another endowment, win with the same probability, they want to donate to a social organization. Which organization is named first is randomized.
Randomization Unit
friendship groups of students
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
one University in Chile
2 treatment groups: game, diary + one control group
each treatment group is divided by friendship: We, therefore, obtain in each treatment group a friendship group and a non-friendship group
Sample size: planned number of observations
The population of inference for the survey consists of the master students of the University of Kassel and of the bachelor students of one Chilean University. The students are offered an online and paper-and-pencil questionnaire via a mailing list of the university and within their respective major courses. We expect a quota of approx. 850 questionnaires in the first wave of the first location (Germany) and 1000 to 2500 questionnaires in the first wave of the second location (Chile) (see power calculations for detail).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
for Chile
200 friendship group game
200 friendship group diary
200 non-friendship group game
200 non-friendship group diary
200 control group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Our basic premise is that we are testing the hypothesis under an α<=5% and are trying to achieve a statistical power >=80%. Based on the simulation study, the final total sample size should be at least in the range of N=2000 to N=3000. Update: By reducing the non-compliance through monetary incentives and by adjusting our randomization procedure to the friendship group level we now assume that we are able to achieve a statistical power of about 80% with a sample size of N=1000
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
German Association for Experimental Economic Research
IRB Approval Date
2018-10-24
IRB Approval Number
XD1XQDC2
Analysis Plan

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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