Impact of Joe Biden's Inauguration on People's Political Identity

Last registered on January 20, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact of Joe Biden's Inauguration on People's Political Identity
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0007070
Initial registration date
January 20, 2021

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 20, 2021, 9:21 AM EST

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

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Michigan

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Michigan

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2021-01-16
End date
2021-01-24
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Affective polarization describes the phenomenon that the disagreement between people from different parties have spread from the ideological realm to other aspects of life. How to distinguish between preferences and beliefs remains an open question in the research of affective polarization. People's identification with a group is affected by group salience and group status. This study is based on Joe Biden's inauguration, which is expected to increase group salience for both Democrats and Republicans, and is expected to increase the social status of Democrats, while decreasing that of Republicans. We plan to run an experiment on CloudResearch. By comparing of people's behaviors before and after the inauguration, we hope to decompose people's political identity into preferences and beliefs, and explore whether the inauguration leads to more affective polarization of Democrats and Republicans.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cohn, Alain and Qingyi Wang. 2021. "Impact of Joe Biden's Inauguration on People's Political Identity." AEA RCT Registry. January 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7070-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2021-01-20
Intervention End Date
2021-01-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
other-other allocation results
prediction of other participants' trust game choices
prediction of other participants' IQ test performance
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Other-other allocation results are designed to measure people's preferences. The more they allocation to one group, the more they like this group.
Prediction of other participants' trust game choices and prediction of other participants' IQ test performance measures participants' beliefs about other participants' trustworthiness and intelligence.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
word-completion task performance
self-description statements
allocation of status points to different groups
answers to the questions about the downside consequences of affective polarization
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Word-completion task performance and self-description statements are designed to measure group salience. The number of political words filled in the word completion task and the rank of the political identity statement in the self-description task mark people's perceived group salience. The more the number of political words, and the higher the rank of political identity statement, the more salience their political identity is.
Allocation of status points to different groups marks participants' perceived group status. The more status points they allocate to one group, the higher the group status.
Answers to the questions about the downside consequences of affective polarization help us to discover how much they are affectively polarized.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study includes two surveys. The first one mainly aims to collects participants' demographic information. The second one measures participants' perceived group status, group salience, and their preferences and beliefs. Subjects of this project will all be adult U.S citizens and live in the US. Subjects will be randomly assigned to three groups. All participants were asked to complete the first survey from Jan 16 to Jan 17. The second survey will be sent later after they complete the first one.
Experimental Design Details
The study includes two surveys. The first one mainly aims to collects participants' demographic information. The second one measures participants' perceived group status, group salience, and their preferences and beliefs. Subjects of this project will all be adult U.S citizens and live in the US. Subjects will be randomly assigned to three groups. All participants were asked to complete the first survey on during the weekend before the inauguration.
The baseline group completed the second one on Jan 19. The two treatment groups receive the second survey after the inauguration, on Jan 22. The first treatment group receives no extra incentives between the two surveys. The second treatment group will be incentivized to watch the inauguration in the first survey. The treatment groups are regarded to experience a change in their political identities compared with the control group, and the second treatment group is regarded to experience a stronger change.
Randomization Method
Randomization done by Qualtrics.
Randomization Unit
Participants are randomly assigned to three different groups. The order of questions in the second survey will also be randomized.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No cluster
Sample size: planned number of observations
750 survey participants.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
250 participants in the baseline, 250 participants in the first treatment group, and 250 participants in the second treatment group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
According to Chen and Li (2009), we use SD of 0.25, power of 0.8, and alpha of 0.05 (two-sided).
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Michigan The Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board (IRB-HSBS)
IRB Approval Date
2021-01-13
IRB Approval Number
HUM00193203
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