Individual Decision Making 01

Last registered on January 09, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Individual Decision Making 01
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008287
Initial registration date
September 27, 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
September 30, 2021, 11:20 PM EDT

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

Last updated
January 09, 2024, 5:23 PM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
IUPUI

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2021-09-29
End date
2024-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This is an investigation of dual motives to give to charity: altruism and warm-glow.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ottoni-Wilhelm, Mark. 2024. "Individual Decision Making 01." AEA RCT Registry. January 09. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8287-3.1
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
There are three sessions to the experiment. Session 2 is the central experiment and is described first.

Session 2: The objective of this experiment is to test the empathy–altruism hypothesis for charitable giving. The giving is to a children’s hospital’s social and emotional support program. The control group reads a simple three-sentence description of the program. One treatment arm reads a fundraising e-mail. The second treatment arm sees a video showing the program in action.

Session 1: The objective of this experiment is to investigate whether three non-substantive aspects of the experimental instructions affect the measures of altruism and warm-glow preferences. If not, great.
If so, we will use the Session 1 results to decide which of the three versions of the experimental instructions we will use.

Session 3: The objective of this experiment is to obtain additional sample size for the measurement of emotional responses to the same treatments we use in Session 2.

Intervention Start Date
2021-09-29
Intervention End Date
2021-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcomes are the amounts given to the children’s hospital in the six decisions. From these measures of generosity, altruistic motivation, and egoistic motivation can be constructed. See the Measurement/Analysis.

Longer-term effects: At the end of the experiment each participant will be given the option to begin a longer-term relationship with the hospital. The outcomes will be: (1) subscribe to the hospital’s email newsletter, (2) make a $5 one-time donation that is in addition to the amount the participant may have donated from their experimental endowment, or (3) make a monthly $5 donation.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Complete details are described in the Measurement/Analysis plan: “eac-Pre-reg-002-v02a-Measurement-AnalysisPlan-IndvDecMake01.docx”.

From the amounts given a structural model (a Cobb-Douglas impure altruism model) can be estimated yielding measures of generosity, altruistic motivation, and egoistic motivation. A second measure of generosity is simply the average amount each participant gives across her/his six decisions.

The longer-term outcomes are intended to determine whether the experimental conditions have effects that last beyond the conclusion of the experimental session.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Most of the secondary outcomes were described in AEARCTR-0005478 (“First Session 2: Evaluating Messages”): Empathic State, Distress State, Negative State, Guilt State. Principle of Care State, Inclusion of Other in the Self, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Principle of Care disposition, and Attention-Check and Manipulation-Check Questions.

In addition, there will be measures of demographics (age, sex, race/ethnicity, Indiana county or state), questions about the context of the experiment, prior knowledge of the hospital, religiosity, political preference (conservative-liberal), and attention/manipulation-check questions. See the Measurement/Analysis plan for details.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Complete details are described in the Measurement/Analysis plan: “eac-Pre-reg-002-v02a-Measurement-AnalysisPlan-IndvDecMake01.docx”.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Session 2: The experimental design is between-subjects (3 x 1) and in each condition: within-subject (the six decisions).

The participants will be recruited by SSRS (and their partners) and invited to complete a study on “Individual Decision Making”. The inclusion criteria are: (1) resident in the \sout{44} 92 Indiana counties \sout{close to Indianapolis, and not close to another city that has a children’s hospital}, (2) 18 years or older, and (3) an equal number of women and men (to the best of SSRS’s ability to balance gender from the probability panels and the nonprobability panels).

2023-08-16: All participants will complete five real-effort, bibliographic data entry tasks (10 to 15 minutes) to earn their payment (either $52 or $63).

Approximately one-third of the participants will be randomly assigned to each of the three conditions: control, e-mail, and video.

After watching the conditions, all participants fill out the Emotional Response Scale, the Principle of Care state measurement, and the Inclusion of Other in the Self. They then make their six decisions.
Then they answer the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Attention-Check question, the Principle of Care dispositional scale, gender, race/ethnicity, the Manipulation-Check questions, the experiment context questions, the questions about familiarity with the children’s hospital, the religion questions, and the political preference question.
At the very end, they decide whether they want a longer-term relationship with the hospital.

Session 1: The experimental design is also between-subjects (3 x 1) and in each condition: within-subject (the six decisions). The participants will be recruited by SSRS and invited to complete a study on “Individual Decision Making”. The inclusion criteria are: (1) a resident of the Indiana-48 perimeter counties, IL, KY, MI, or OH, (2) 18 years or older, and (3) an equal number of women and men (again, to the best of SSRS’s ability to balance gender from the probability panel).

Approximately one-third of the participants will be randomly assigned to each of the three conditions: check nothing, check own payment, and check own payment as well as how much is going to the hospital.

Session 3: The experimental design is also between-subjects (3 x 1), but there is no within-subject variation (participants do not make six donation decisions). The three conditions are the same as in Session 2: control, e-mail, and video.

The participants will be QRS panel members invited to complete a study on “Individual Decision Making”. The inclusion criteria are: (1) resident of IL, KY, MI, or OH, (2) 18 years or older, (3) an equal number of women and men, and (4) an age quota, so that the Qualtrics respondents match (approximately) the US age-sex distribution.

Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization by computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Session 1: N = 270 SSRS participants (in Indiana-48 perimeter counties and IL, KY, MI, OH). Probability-based sample. We concluded Session 1 with N = 87 after the results first indicated that approximately one-half of the participants made decisions at the top-corner, and our Modification 1 did not affect that result. N = 68 were from a probability-based sample, and N = 19 were from a non-probability-based sample (the N = 19 non-prob sample was a Modification 1 idea to determine whether the top-corner problem was specific to the probability-based sample). Session 2: N = 575 to 600 SSRS, Ipsos, \sout{Prodege, QuestMindShare} participants (in Indiana-44+48=92 counties). N = 600 Probability-based sample (SSRS and Ipsos). \sout{N = 240 nonprobability (Prodege and QuestMindShare).} Session 3: N = 897 Qualtrics participants (in IL, KY, MI, OH).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Session 1: N = \sout{90} Approximately 30 per arm.
Session 2: N = 200
Session 3: N = 300
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Emotional response power analysis: “eac-Pre-reg-003-v02a-PowerAnalysis-IndvDecMake01.docx” Our analysis indicated that with N = 180, we are powered to detect differences between conditions of 30 percent of a control group standard deviation in both ESi and DNSi (Ottoni-Wilhelm, 2021). At N = 90 we are powered to detect differences = 42 percent of a control group standard deviation. In our pilot study, Video (N = 74) moved ESi 57 percent of sES (relative to control sES, N = 94), and Email (N = 110) moved DNSi 76 percent of control-group sDNS. α and β power analysis: “- - - Power analysis-IndivDecisionMaking-v01a-2018-10-22.docx” In Session 2 we have budget for N = 600, or N = 200 in each treatment Video, Email, and Paragraph (control). Our power analysis indicates that, with N ≥ 180 in each treatment arm, we will be able to detect differences in α in the range of .06 to .14, and β in the range of .04 to .08 (Ottoni-Wilhelm, 2018). SSRS has told us that N = 600 may not be possible, and that we may end up with less. Our power analysis indicates that, with N = 90 in each treatment arm, we will be able to detect differences in α in the range of .12 to .28, and β in the range of .08 to .16 (Ottoni-Wilhelm, 2018). Session 3 power analysis: “eac-Pre-reg-002-v01a-Measurement-AnalysisPlan-IndvDecMake01.docx” Project 12. Our power analysis indicates that, with N ≈ 300 in each treatment arm, we will be able to detect (testing at .05, with power .80): 1. Substantive-differences—in the first-stage regressions—of about one-half the SSRS effect size (see Project 12, Table 12.2). 2. Quality-differences between QRS and SSRS of about three to 6.5 percentage points (see Project 12, Table 12.3).
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Indiana University Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2019-05-28
IRB Approval Number
1410416410 and 11788
Analysis Plan

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