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Field
Last Published
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Before
February 15, 2023 06:55 AM
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After
May 22, 2023 10:20 AM
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
This experiment focuses on the relationship between rule-following and cooperative behaviour in social dilemmas, by adapting the “bucket task” by Kimbrough and Vostroknutov (2018). Across five experimental treatments participants are asked to allocate five tokens between a blue and a yellow bucket. In all experimental treatments the primary outcome of interest is the number of tokens placed in the blue bucket, which represents the rate of rule-following and cooperation, respectively. We will also elicit empirical expectations measured as the expected allocation of tokens to the blue bucket by other participants.
The five experimental treatments are:
1. Baseline Public Goods Game (PGG) – No Rule;
2. Baseline Rule Following Task (RFT) – No Public Good;
3. PGG with a Rule;
4. PGG with a Social Rule (“helps other group members”);
5. RFT and PGG No Rule (order of tasks randomised).
T1 to T4 are between-subjects, and T5 is within-subjects. All treatments are followed by a questionnaire asking about gender, age, and political ideology and the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005).
We will collect 104 participants in each of the 5 treatments, that is, a total of 520 participants. The experiment will be run on the platform Prolific using the software LIONESS Lab (Giamattei et al. 2020). It has received ethical approval from the Nottingham School of Economics Research Ethics committee.
Both the PGG and the RFT are one-shot games.
** Follow up Experiments of T5 (planned for December 2022) **
In the first wave of experiments with T1 to T5 (run on Prolific on 27 July 2022) we collected about 104 observations per treatment on average. In T5 which has two orders we only had 56 observations on average. Since there is evidence for order effects with the RFT we decided to replicate T5 with increased numbers of observations such that we have the same expected number of observations in all treatments regardless of order.
We will therefore rerun T5 (RFT and PGG No Rule) in both orders with an expected sample size of 110 each. This will give us increased power to detect any potential order effects, and also allow for proper comparison between behaviour in T5 with behaviour in Baseline PGG and Baseline RFT respectively. To be on the safe side the target sample size in both orders of T5 is 110. To allow for dropouts (estimated from wave 1 to be roughly 10%) and to facilitate the collection of equal numbers our target will be to recruit 250 participants (that is 125 per order in T5) which should accommodate for potential dropouts of about 15 per treatment enabling us to collect 110 complete observations in each order.
All procedural details described in the rest of this preregistration remain the same.
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After
This experiment focuses on the relationship between rule-following and cooperative behaviour in social dilemmas, by adapting the “bucket task” by Kimbrough and Vostroknutov (2018). Across five experimental treatments participants are asked to allocate five tokens between a blue and a yellow bucket. In all experimental treatments the primary outcome of interest is the number of tokens placed in the blue bucket, which represents the rate of rule-following and cooperation, respectively. We will also elicit empirical expectations measured as the expected allocation of tokens to the blue bucket by other participants.
The five experimental treatments are:
1. Baseline Public Goods Game (PGG) – No Rule;
2. Baseline Rule Following Task (RFT) – No Public Good;
3. PGG with a Rule;
4. PGG with a Social Rule (“helps other group members”);
5. RFT and PGG No Rule (order of tasks randomised).
T1 to T4 are between-subjects, and T5 is within-subjects. All treatments are followed by a questionnaire asking about gender, age, and political ideology and the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005).
We will collect 104 participants in each of the 5 treatments, that is, a total of 520 participants. The experiment will be run on the platform Prolific using the software LIONESS Lab (Giamattei et al. 2020). It has received ethical approval from the Nottingham School of Economics Research Ethics committee.
Both the PGG and the RFT are one-shot games.
** Follow up Experiments of T5 (planned for December 2022) **
In the first wave of experiments with T1 to T5 (run on Prolific on 27 July 2022) we collected about 104 observations per treatment on average. In T5 which has two orders we only had 56 observations on average. Since there is evidence for order effects with the RFT we decided to replicate T5 with increased numbers of observations such that we have the same expected number of observations in all treatments regardless of order.
We will therefore rerun T5 (RFT and PGG No Rule) in both orders with an expected sample size of 110 each. This will give us increased power to detect any potential order effects, and also allow for proper comparison between behaviour in T5 with behaviour in Baseline PGG and Baseline RFT respectively. To be on the safe side the target sample size in both orders of T5 is 110. To allow for dropouts (estimated from wave 1 to be roughly 10%) and to facilitate the collection of equal numbers our target will be to recruit 250 participants (that is 125 per order in T5) which should accommodate for potential dropouts of about 15 per treatment enabling us to collect 110 complete observations in each order.
All procedural details described in the rest of this preregistration remain the same.
** Follow up Experiments of Baseline RFT (planned for June 2023) **
In a follow up study to the first wave of experiments with T1 to T5 (run on Prolific on 27 July 2022) we will collect 464 observations across 4 treatments, which maintain the structure of the initial experiments described above.
In this follow up study we will conduct 4 treatments which replicate and extend Baseline RFT in the first wave, implementing a 2x2 design.
We will examine how behaviour in the decision task in Baseline RFT is impacted by removing the stated rule and/or by the addition of a sentence in the instructions stating participants submissions will be accepted if they submit the correct completion code for the study.
We have two main hypotheses which will be tested by this additional experiment. Hypothesis 1: We expect no difference in behaviour due to the addition of a sentence in the instructions in treatments with a rule. Hypothesis 2: The proportion of tokens placed in the yellow bucket by participants should be significantly higher in treatments without a rule.
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Field
Randomization Method
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Before
People will be randomly allocated into one of the five treatments by the LIONESS Lab software (https://lioness-lab.org/).
In the follow up experiments of T5 participants will be randomly allocated into one of the two orders by the LIONESS Lab software (https://lioness-lab.org/).
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After
People will be randomly allocated into one of the five treatments by the LIONESS Lab software (https://lioness-lab.org/).
In the follow up experiments of T5 participants will be randomly allocated into one of the two orders by the LIONESS Lab software (https://lioness-lab.org/).
In the follow up experiments of Baseline RFT participants will be randomly allocated into one of the four treatments by the LIONESS Lab software (https://lioness-lab.org/).
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
We will recruit 104 participants for each of the 5 treatments, that is, a total of 520 people.
The previous sentence refers to the previous experiment run in July 2022. We now plan a follow up with an additional 250 participants, allowing for dropouts. See details above in the experimental design.
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After
We will recruit 104 participants for each of the 5 treatments, that is, a total of 520 people.
The previous sentence refers to the previous experiment run in July 2022. We now plan a follow up with an additional 250 participants, allowing for dropouts. See details above in the experimental design.
The planned follow up experiment in June 2023 will recruit 464 participants.
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
On average 104 participants per treatment were collected in July 2022.
In the follow up experiments of T5 we plan to recruit 125 participants with a target number per order of 110 after dropouts.
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After
On average 104 participants per treatment were collected in July 2022.
In the follow up experiments of T5 we plan to recruit 125 participants with a target number per order of 110 after dropouts.
In the follow up experiments of Baseline RFT we plan to recruit approximately 116 participants per treatment.
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