Social Media Signalling

Last registered on February 01, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social Media Signalling
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009359
Initial registration date
May 12, 2022

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
May 16, 2022, 5:28 PM EDT

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

Last updated
February 01, 2024, 8:48 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Matt Lowe
Affiliation
UBC
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Deivis Angeli
PI Affiliation
UBC
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2022-05-12
End date
2022-12-27
Keywords
Behavior, Education
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This trial studies social media signalling equilibria by exploring whether social media activity is predictive of offline behaviors. See pre-analysis plan (once available) for full details.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Angeli, Deivis and Matt Lowe. 2024. "Social Media Signalling." AEA RCT Registry. February 01. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9359-2.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
See pre-analysis plan (once available) for full intervention details.
Intervention Start Date
2022-05-12
Intervention End Date
2022-06-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
See pre-analysis plan (once available) for primary and secondary outcomes.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
See pre-analysis plan (once available) for full experiment design details.

The pre-analysis plan relates to the audit study part of the paper. In addition, we are running a survey experiment (through CloudResearch's Connect platform) to complement the findings from the audit study.

In the survey experiment, we aim to recruit 1,000-1,500 American Twitter users to answer a survey on "social media use, well-being, and behavior" (recruitment is ongoing). At the end of the survey, we give them the chance to choose to donate some of their $5 survey incentive to the NAACP. The donation constitutes our private measure of racial attitudes. In the survey we also ask participants, in random order, (i) whether they want to retweet an NAACP tweet (we later track whether they retweeted or not), and (ii) for them to report privately how much they support the NAACP. We will then test for (i) whether those that retweet give more in NAACP donations than those that do not, and (ii) whether the informativeness of the retweet action is greater or less than the informativeness of the private measure of support.
Experimental Design Details
See pre-analysis plan.
Randomization Method
Stratified randomization in STATA, full explanation in pre-analysis plan.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
11k (more details in pre-analysis plan)
Sample size: planned number of observations
18,514 (more details in pre-analysis plan)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Core randomizations are 50:50
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
See pre-analysis plan.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UBC Behavioral Research Ethics Board
IRB Approval Date
2022-05-06
IRB Approval Number
H20-03758
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Angeli and Lowe -- Signalling Virtue -- Pre-Analysis Plan

MD5: 33306ec99897c14bf91d1f93d311d457

SHA1: d785fcd8747cdb28dedefc1c5127f8e3bcd19c99

Uploaded At: May 12, 2022

Angeli and Lowe -- Signalling Virtue -- Pre-Analysis Plan (updated May 24, 2022)

MD5: 4f51015880aed1bebaf1eb34f98b8040

SHA1: 93d36b8c676509559b51975590bad12632c89434

Uploaded At: May 24, 2022

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
May 29, 2022, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
December 27, 2022, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
11,450
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
11,450
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials