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Field
Trial Status
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Before
on_going
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After
in_development
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Abstract
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Before
This is a registry for our pilot survey. We aim to examine how biased media reports on COVID-19 may affect anti-Asian racism. We will do a randomized controlled trial by showing a real CNN news clip. The treatment group will watch a potentially racially biased news clip about COVID-19, while the control group will watch a neutral news clip on health advice. We will estimate the treatment effect on anti-Asian sentiment, perception about racism, and racist behaviors. To measure racist behaviors, we will use three outcome measures: a donation question, a dictator game, and a petition question. The dictator game is an incentivized survey item with real money at stake, and the other two questions ask about intentions to donate and to sign a petition.
In the pilot survey, we will randomize different survey formats to understand how they affect the estimation of continuous latent variables, such as attitude and perception. One half of survey participants will respond to a questionnaire using Likert scale and another half will respond to a questionnaire using Slider. Using survey responses from two different formats, we will estimate the nonparametric densities of latent variables and will discuss which survey method can provide responses that are more aligned with standard identification assumptions in the measurement error literature.
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After
This is a registry for our pilot survey. We will estimate a structural model of anti-Asian racism using an exogenous variation from an information randomized controlled trial. The structural model explains anti-Asian racism using two motivations, intrinsic and reputational. Intrinsic motivation is captured by a measure which we call “anti-Asian sentiment”. It is measured by self-reports in multiple questions. To defend these measures from potential social desirability bias, we ask List randomization questions. Reputational motivation is captured by people’s concern about other people's perception of their anti-Asian sentiment if their behaviors are publicly observable.
The intrinsic and reputational motivations will jointly determine people’s racist actions against Asians. To measure racist behaviors, we will use three outcome measures: a petition, a dictator game, and a donation question. The dictator game is an incentivized survey item with real money at stake, and the other two questions ask about intentions to donate and to sign a petition.
To achieve this purpose, we have a two-layered experiment design. First, we will randomize whether the behaviors of respondents will be public to other people. Half of the respondents will be told that their behaviors will be shared with others, and another half will be told that their behaviors are anonymous. In this way, we directly test the existence of the reputational motivation and help quantify the parameters associated with reputational motivations in our structural model. Second, we will randomly choose half of the respondents and show them an animation that describes rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, the control group will not see the animation. The animation aims to shift respondents’ perception of the acceptability of racist behaviors against Asians, which can potentially change the reputational motivation.
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Trial Start Date
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Before
August 26, 2020
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After
December 16, 2020
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Last Published
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Before
August 26, 2020 11:47 AM
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After
December 15, 2020 03:54 PM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
We will randomly show different CNN news clips for 100 seconds. The treatment group will watch a potentially racially biased news clip about COVID-19. The control group will watch a neutral news clip on health advice.
In addition to the RCT, we will randomize the survey formats to understand their impact on the estimation. Half of survey sample will respond to a questionnaire using Likert scale and another half will respond to a questionnaire using Slider. Using pilot survey responses from two different formats, we will estimate the nonparametric densities of latent variables and we will discuss which survey method is better to apply the standard econometric techniques to study measurement errors.
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After
We use a two-layered experiment design. We have two interventions, so our sample will be divided into four treatment arms.
The first intervention is the manipulation of publicity. The treatment group will receive a message telling them that their actions will be public while the control group will be told that their actions are anonymous.
The second intervention randomly provides information. The treatment group will see one animation about rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. The control group will not see the animation.
Besides, we ask List randomization questions to assess potential social desirability bias in anti-Asian sentiment and perception about racism against Asian Americans.
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Intervention Start Date
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Before
August 26, 2020
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After
December 16, 2020
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Intervention End Date
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Before
September 09, 2020
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After
December 23, 2020
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
We have three primary sets of outcome variables.
The first set of outcome variables is about anti-Asian sentiments. The second set of outcome variables is about perception about racism in the US. The third set of outcome variables is three measurements of discriminatory behaviors.
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After
We have three primary sets of outcome variables.
The first set of outcome variables is about anti-Asian sentiments. The second set of outcome variables is about the perception of racism in the US. The third set of outcome variables is three measurements of discriminatory behaviors.
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
We collect multiple measurements for each set of outcome variables, not to cherry-pick the most responsive survey items later, but to apply nonparametric estimation techniques to estimate measurement errors. Having multiple measurements is one of the essential identifying assumptions.
The first set of outcome variables on anti-Asian sentiment is a shorter version of the realistic threat measure, intergroup anxiety and prejudice measures used in Stephan et al. (1999). The second set of outcome variables on perception about racism in the US is measured by asking how much respondents agree to five statements. The statements are (1) whether typical American citizens might feel annoyed at racial stereotype jokes, (2) whether typical American citizens will follow a manager with racial bias as long as the person delivers results, (3) whether a person who publicly claims to be a racist can maintain good social relationships with most people, (4) whether typical American citizens will tolerate racial bias to some degree, as long as it does not violate the law evidently, and (5) if a person refers to the novel corona virus as “China virus”, the person will face severe criticism.
The third set of outcome variables is about discriminatory actions. We will ask three questions: a donation question, a dictator game, and a petition question. The dictator game is an incentivized survey item with real money at stake, and the other two questions ask about intentions to donate and to sign a petition. In a donation question, we present descriptions about two organizations with opposing attitudes to Asians: the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council (A3PCON). Next, we ask to which organization and how much respondents are willing to donate if they are given $10. If they choose to donate to CIS, the racist action is coded as 1. In a dictator game, we randomly match respondents with two other survey participants, who responded to donate to the CIS and A3PCON, respectively. Next, we ask respondents to split $1 between themselves and their matched partners. To remove deception, we will randomly select 10% of survey sample and will make actual payment to survey participants based on responses. We will explain that their answers will not affect the probability of winning the lottery. We repeat dictator games twice with two different partners (CIS or A3PCON) to remove individual fixed effect, which includes generosity in sharing money with someone else. We randomize the order of two dictator games to remove any order effect. If survey respondents share more money with a partner who donated to CIS than with a partner who donated to A3PCON, the racist action is coded as 1. In the petition question, we present two different petition forms, with one urging to protect the United States’ interests from Chinese threats and another urging to protect safety and rights of Asian Americans in the US. We ask which petition survey participants would like to sign. If they choose to sign a petition to protect the US from Chinese threats, the racist action is coded as 1.
Reference
Stephan, Walter G., Oscar Ybarra, and Guy Bachman. "Prejudice toward immigrants 1." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29.11 (1999): 2221-2237.
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After
We collect multiple measurements for each set of outcome variables, not to cherry-pick the most responsive survey items later, but to apply nonparametric estimation techniques to estimate measurement errors. Having multiple measurements is one of the essential identifying assumptions.
The first set of outcome variables on anti-Asian sentiment is a shorter version of the realistic threat measure, intergroup anxiety, and prejudice measures used in Stephan et al. (1999).
The second set of outcome variables on perception about racism in the US is measured by asking how much respondents agree to five statements. The statements are (1) whether a person who publicly says he/she dislikes Asian Americans can maintain good social relationships with most people, (2) if a person refers to the novel coronavirus as “China virus,” the person will face severe criticism, (3) whether people will stand by Asian Americans and will fight for their rights, (4) whether people will support if the US government reduces the number of Asian immigrants because they threaten this country, (5) whether people will support if the US government deports Chinese immigrants if they have any Chinese government connections.
The third set of outcome variables is discriminatory actions. We will ask three questions: a petition question, a dictator game, and a donation question. The dictator game is an incentivized survey item with real money at stake, and the other two questions ask about intentions to donate and to sign a petition.
In the petition question, we present two different petition forms, with one urging to protect the United States’ interests from Chinese threats and another urging to protect the safety and rights of Asian Americans in the US. We ask which petition survey participants would like to sign. If they choose to sign a petition to protect the US from Chinese threats, the racist action is coded as 1.
In a dictator game, we randomly match respondents with two other survey participants, who gave different answers in the previous petition question, respectively. Next, we ask respondents to split $1 between themselves and their matched partners. To remove deception, we will randomly select 10% of the survey sample and will make actual payment to survey participants based on responses. We will explain that their answers will not affect the probability of winning the lottery. We repeat dictator games twice with two different partners to remove individual fixed effects, which includes generosity in sharing money with someone else. We randomize the order of two dictator games to remove any order effect. If survey respondents share more money with a partner who signed a petition to protect the country from Chinese threats than with a partner who signed a petition to protect Asian Americans’ safety and rights, the racist action is coded as 1.
In a donation question, we present descriptions about two organizations with opposing attitudes to Asians: the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council (A3PCON). Next, we ask which organization respondents are willing to donate if they are given $1. If they choose to donate to CIS, the racist action is coded as 1.
Reference
Stephan, Walter G., Oscar Ybarra, and Guy Bachman. "Prejudice toward immigrants 1." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29.11 (1999): 2221-2237.
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
To screen out survey participants who pay little attention to the survey, we have inserted an attention check question just before implementing our video intervention. In an attention check question, we ask respondents how they are currently feeling, but we tell them to check only “None of the above” option in the middle of the question. Survey participants who fail to pay attention to our message and thus choose any other choices will be screened out.
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After
To screen out survey participants who pay little attention to the survey, we have inserted two attention check questions before the two interventions. In the first attention check question, we ask respondents how they are currently feeling, but we tell them to check only the “None of the above” option in the middle of the question. Survey participants who fail to pay attention to our message and choose any other choices will be screened out. The second attention check question uses the same trick except that we ask the respondents which device they are using to participate in the survey. We ask them to check “Other” as a correct answer.
To remove any order effect, we randomize the order of multiple choices when we measure racist actions.
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Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
360 in pilot survey and 3000 in main survey.
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After
100 in the pilot survey and 3000 in the main survey.
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
360 in pilot survey and 3000 in main survey.
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After
100 in the pilot survey and 3000 in the main survey.
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
50% of sample is in treatment arm and 50% of sample is in control arm.
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After
50% of the sample is in the treatment arm and 50% of the sample is in the control arm.
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Field
Keyword(s)
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Before
Behavior, Crime Violence And Conflict
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After
Behavior, Crime Violence And Conflict, Finance
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Field
Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
We will randomly show a different CNN news clip for 100 seconds. The treatment group will watch a potentially racially biased news clip about COVID-19 broadcasted in March 2020. We show the YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEARtTBHXEw&t=1s from 00:58. The control group will watch a neutral news clip on health advice broadcasted in November 2015. We show the YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyoUbHVx3Hw from 00:44.
In addition to the RCT, we will randomize the survey formats to understand their impact on the estimation. Half of survey sample will respond to a questionnaire using Likert scale and another half will respond to a questionnaire using Slider. Using pilot survey responses from two different formats, we will estimate the nonparametric densities of latent variables and we will discuss which survey method is better to apply the standard econometric techniques to study measurement errors.
|
After
We use a two-layered experiment design. We have two interventions, so our sample will be divided into four treatment arms.
The first intervention is the manipulation of publicity. The treatment group will receive a message telling them that their actions will be public while the control group will be told that their actions are anonymous.
The second intervention randomly provides information. The treatment group will see one animation about rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. The control group will not see the animation.
Link : https://www.youtube.com/embed/StmsOdjkorc
Besides, we ask List randomization questions to assess potential social desirability bias in anti-Asian sentiment and perception about racism against Asian Americans. The set of neutral statements are (1) I am a veteran, (2) I am living with at least one sibling in my household, (3) I have a smartphone, (4) I have health insurance coverage (of any kind, either public or private). We chose these statements by investigating the American Community Survey to minimize the variation in the responses and to select a set of questions whose responses are negatively correlated.
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