Intelligence and Leadership

Last registered on February 27, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Intelligence and Leadership
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004988
Initial registration date
January 27, 2020

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
January 27, 2020, 11:39 AM EST

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

Last updated
February 27, 2020, 9:53 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region
Midlands

Primary Investigator

Name
Graeme Pearce
Affiliation
University of Exeter
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Michalis Drouvelis
PI Affiliation
University of Birmingham
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-01-27
End date
2020-03-31
Keywords
Education, Labor
Additional Keywords
intelligence, cooperation, leadership
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We study how intelligence impacts the decisions of individuals in an infinitely repeated sequential public goods game.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Drouvelis, Michalis and Graeme Pearce. 2020. "Intelligence and Leadership." AEA RCT Registry. February 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4988-1.2000000000000002
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We run an experiment in which subjects are divided into High and Low intelligence groups. This is determined by their relative rank in a Raven Test - those above the median are High, and those below, Low. Subjects then play a two player public goods game, repeated indefinitely.
Intervention Start Date
2020-01-28
Intervention End Date
2020-03-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Strategy Choices
2. Contributions in Period 1
3. Beliefs
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
'Strategies' will be constructed by considering all the possible strategies that can be made (given the constraints) and numbering them. They will coincide with many popular strategies in the literature, and this will allow us to compare them across treatments. In particular, many strategies are already labelled as 'Naughty' and 'Nice' by Ken Binmore in his book, 'Playing for Real'.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Personality traits and intelligence
2. Personality traits and strategy choice
3. Personality traits and beliefs
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
We are interested in how agreeableness, as elicited in the BIG5 personality test, correlates with 1) intelligence and 2) with strategy choice in the infinitely repeated sequential two player public goods game.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We run an experiment in which subjects are divided into High and Low intelligence groups. This is determined by their relative rank in a Raven Test - those above the median are High, and those below, Low. They then complete a sequential 2 player public goods game, indefinitely repeated (discount rate = 0.75). They play as either the first mover or a second mover.

We have 4 treatments - HH, HL, LH, LL - where HH refers to a 'High First Mover, High Follower' and HL refers to a 'High First Mover, Low Follower'.

Rather than let subjects play the game actively, they specify a plan of action - i.e. we elicit their full strategies. We then match them to someone in the session, and the computer plays out the game.

Plans of action are limited so that subjects strategies can only be conditional on Period t and t-1 actions. As the strategy space is infinitely large, we must enforce some limitations. We do this for both first and second movers, ensuring that they both must make 30 decisions in the experiment.

In addition, we elicit subjects beliefs about the other players contributions in Period 1 ( a point estimate) that is incentivised.

Prior to completing the repeated public goods game, subjects complete (in a random order) tests to elicit social preference type, risk aversion. After the public goods game, we also elicit Personality traits using the Big 5 test.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
random, computer
Randomization Unit
individual level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
session level - 20
Sample size: planned number of observations
20 session level observations - 200 subjects in total.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
50 subjects per treatment - in each role (approx)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Exeter
IRB Approval Date
2020-01-26
IRB Approval Number
n/a
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