Professional Identity and the Behavior of Scientists

Last registered on March 23, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Professional Identity and the Behavior of Scientists
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004023
Initial registration date
March 18, 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
March 23, 2019, 8:44 PM EDT

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

Last updated
March 23, 2019, 8:50 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Hamburg

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Kiel
PI Affiliation
ETH Zuerich
PI Affiliation
University of Kiel

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-03-20
End date
2019-04-10
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We study how the professional identity of being a scientist affects the behaviour of scientists across a number of tasks, including a risk-taking and a coin-tossing task.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Drupp, Moritz et al. 2019. "Professional Identity and the Behavior of Scientists ." AEA RCT Registry. March 23. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4023-2.0
Former Citation
Drupp, Moritz et al. 2019. "Professional Identity and the Behavior of Scientists ." AEA RCT Registry. March 23. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/4023/history/44042
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2019-03-20
Intervention End Date
2019-04-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Risk-taking, coin toss reports, donations.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experimental design is described in detail in the Pre-Analysis-Plan.
Experimental Design Details
Our experiment accordingly consists of three treatments. A professional identity treatment (PROF) aims at making the subject’s professional identity as a scientist salient, while the private identity (control) treatment (PRIV) aims at making the private identity salient. In addition, we include a third treatment in our experiment: a private and simultaneous gender identity treatment (labeled: GENDER).
To prime participants, we use nine questions that are designed to capture common features of a professional or private context, that are unrelated to truth-telling and as similar as possible across the treatments. For example, "Do you coordinate your work hours with your colleagues?" (RPOF), "Do you coordinate your work hours with your close friends?" (PRIV), and "Do you need to coordinate your work hours with your family obligations?" (GENDER). In the context of our study, the priming intervention aims to reveal the behavioral difference between a subject’s private (or gender) and professional identity and thus be indicative of the norms and behavioral patterns associated with the scientific identity of the subjects in terms of their behaviour as revealed in a lottery task, a coin toss reporting task and a donation task.
Randomization Method
Randomization is done in EXCEL.
Randomization Unit
Unit of randomisation are individual scientists.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
9
Sample size: planned number of observations
1080
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
432, 432 and 216.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
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