Correspondence Bias and Memory

Last registered on December 28, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Correspondence Bias and Memory
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003819
Initial registration date
October 10, 2019

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 11, 2019, 11:33 AM EDT

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

Last updated
December 28, 2019, 5:04 PM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Humboldt University of Berlin, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Carnegie Mellon University
PI Affiliation
University of Pittsburgh

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2019-10-15
End date
2019-12-06
Secondary IDs
Abstract
This project aims to understand correspondence bias and its determinants, especially its interactions with imperfect memory. Correspondence bias is the tendency to draw inferences about a person's enduring characteristics from behaviors that can be entirely explained by the incentives/environment that induce them. In our first study, we identify the bias through a clean experimental design that deals with three potential confounders. Subjects in our experiment play a dictator game as the dictator in the first stage. In stage 2, they are randomly matched into a group of 4 to play a benign game and a malign game. Benign game promotes cooperation, while the malign game motivates them to harm each other. In stage 3, we elicit their benign premium, which is their willingness to pay, as the receiver in the dictator game, to choose the one they play the benign game with as their dictator. Furthermore, our design enables us to investigate whether there are ways to potentially alleviate correspondence bias or even eliminate it. The second study concerns the interactions between imperfect memory and correspondence bias. The central hypothesis is actions are easier to recall than the environment in which actions take place. Consequently, correspondence bias becomes more severe when people have to rely on their long-term memory to make a decision as it becomes even harder to attribute behaviors to the environment instead of a person's enduring characteristics. We test this hypothesis by comparing benign premium, our measure for correspondence bias, when there is no delay between obtaining information in stage 2 and making partner choice in stage 3 and when there is a 1-hour delay between the two.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Han, Yi, Yiming Liu and George Loewenstein. 2019. "Correspondence Bias and Memory." AEA RCT Registry. December 28. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3819-1.4000000000000001
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-10-15
Intervention End Date
2019-12-06

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Benign premium: the amount of money one is willing to pay to be matched with the benign player
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
We construct our primary outcome as follows. In stage 3, subjects are asked to choose between two players they have played with in stage 2 to play a dictator game as the powerless receiver. We elicit their willingness to pay to be matched with the benign game player who they played the benign game with. The more they are willing to pay to be matched with her, the stronger their correspondence bias.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We have two treatments in our experiment. The first one is the instant choice condition. This treatment has four major stages. At the first stage, all subjects make a decision as the dictator in the dictator game. At the second stage, they are randomly matched into groups of four to play the benign game and the malign game. The benign game encourages cooperation, while the malign game motivate subjects to harm each other. At the end of the second stage, subjects are able to see their outcomes in the benign game and the malign game and their partners' choices. Third, they are asked, as the receiver, to choose a dictator between a benign game partner and a malign game partner to play the first stage dictator game. We predict that there exists a benign premium: subjects are willing to pay to be matched with the benign game partner. Lastly, they are asked to recall the key information generated in the experiment: who they play with, which game they play, the payoff they get and what actions their partners choose.

The second treatment is the delayed choice condition. The setup of this treatment is the same with the instant choice condition with one exception: there is a 1-hour delay at the end of the second stage. After looking at the results of the benign game and the malign game, we ask subjects to take a break for 1 hour before they can proceed to stage 3. During that hour they are free to choose any activity they want. After the 1-hour delay ends, they have 10 minutes to log back into the study and finish stage 3. If they come back more than 10 minutes late, then they can only get half of their experimental payment excluding the show-up fee.

The central assumption is people can recall the actions of others but not the environment in which those actions are taken. In the delayed choice condition, subjects take a 1 hour break between stage 2 and stage 3. So to utilize the information generated in stage 2 when making the stage 3 decision, subjects need to reply more on their memory in the delayed choice condition. The hypothesis is the benign premium, our measure for correspondence bias, is larger in the delayed choice condition than in the instant choice condition. As we also ask subjects to recall the game they play and others' actions in stage 2, we can directly test whether the 1-hour delay indeed affects people's recall of previous events or not.

To deal with the potential selection issue, we also add a 1-hour delay in the instant choice condition. After subjects finish the recall questions, they enter a 1-hour waiting period. The rule of the delay is the same with the delayed choice condition. After the delay ends, they can see their payoffs. In both the instant and delayed decision condition, we inform the subjects in the recruiting advertisement that the experiment will last around 1 hour and 20 minutes but the actual decision time is around 20 minutes. Subjects are required to have at least 90 minutes of free time at the time of signing up in both conditions.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
simple randomization with a pseudo-random random number generator.
Randomization Unit
Individual-level randomization
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
8-9 sessions
Sample size: planned number of observations
150-180 subjects in each treatment, 300-360 in total; 40 subjects per session
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
150-180 subjects in each treatment arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Human Judgement and Decision-Making
IRB Approval Date
2018-03-14
IRB Approval Number
IRBSTUDY2015_00000482
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
December 04, 2019, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
December 04, 2019, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
347
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
167 control (instant decision), 180 treatment (delayed decision)
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials