Pre-registered Online Experiment Research Articles

Evidence for positive and negative transfer of abstract task knowledge in adults and school-aged children

Engaging cognitive control is essential to flexibly adapt to constantly changing environments. However, relatively little is known about how prior task experience impacts on the engagement of cognitive control in novel task environments. We aimed to clarify how individuals learn and transfer the engagement of cognitive control with a focus on the hierarchical and temporal aspects of task knowledge. Highlighting two distinct cognitive control processes, the engagement of cognitive control in advance (proactive control) and in response to conflicts (reactive control), we conducted six preregistered online experiments with both adults (Experiment 1, 3, and 5: N = 71, N = 108, and N = 70) and 9- to 10-year-olds (Experiment 2, 4, 6: N = 69, N = 108, and N = 70). Using two different experimental paradigms, we demonstrated that prior task experience of engaging reactive control makes adults and 9-to 10-year-olds respond in a reactive way in a subsequent similar-structured condition with different stimuli in which proactive control could have been engaged. This indicates that individuals do learn knowledge about the temporal structure of task goal activation and, on occasion, negatively transfer this knowledge. Furthermore, individuals exhibited these negative transfer effects in a similar-structured condition with different task goals and stimuli, indicating that they learn hierarchically-structured task knowledge. The collective findings suggest a new way of understanding how hierarchical and temporal task knowledge influences the engagement of cognitive control and highlight potential mechanisms underlying the near transfer effects observed in cognitive control training.

Development and validation of the pandemic fatigue scale

The existence and nature of pandemic fatigue–defined as a gradually emerging subjective state of weariness and exhaustion from, and a general demotivation towards, following recommended health-protective behaviors, including keeping oneself informed during a pandemic–has been debated. Herein, we introduce the Pandemic Fatigue Scale and show how pandemic fatigue evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from one panel survey and two repeated cross-sectional surveys in Denmark and Germany (overall N = 34,582). We map the correlates of pandemic fatigue and show that pandemic fatigue is negatively related to people’s self-reported adherence to recommended health-protective behaviors. Manipulating the (de)motivational aspect of pandemic fatigue in a preregistered online experiment (N = 1584), we further show that pandemic fatigue negatively affects people’s intention to adhere to recommended health-protective behaviors. Combined, these findings provide evidence not only for the existence of pandemic fatigue, but also its psychological and behavioral associations.

Repeated response execution and inhibition alter subjective preferences but do not affect automatic approach and avoidance tendencies toward an object.

Repeated action or inaction toward objects changes preferences for those objects. However, it remains unclear whether such training activates approach-avoidance motivation toward the objects, which leads to actual behavior. We conducted a pre-registered online experiment to examine whether approach and avoidance tendencies were affected by the experience of having executed or withheld a button-press response to a stimulus. Participants (N = 236) performed a Go/NoGo task in which they were asked to repeatedly execute a response to a picture of a mug (i.e., Go-primed stimulus) and suppress a response to another picture of a mug (i.e., NoGo-primed stimulus). They then received one of two manikin tasks, which were implicit association tests designed to assess approach-avoidance tendencies. One manikin task measured the reaction times of moving a manikin toward or away from the Go-primed stimulus and the other picture of a mug (i.e., unprimed stimulus). The other manikin task measured the reaction times of moving a manikin toward or away from the NoGo-primed stimulus and the unprimed stimulus. The participants then rated their preference for the Go-primed, NoGo-primed, and unprimed items. The Go-primed item was evaluated as more highly preferable than the unprimed item in the Go condition, while the NoGo-primed item was evaluated as less preferable than the unprimed item in the NoGo condition. In contrast, the mean approach/avoidance reaction times in the manikin task showed no difference between the Go-primed and unprimed stimuli or between the NoGo-primed and unprimed stimuli. When participants repeatedly responded or inhibited their responses to an object, their explicit preference for the object increased or decreased, respectively. However, the effect did not occur in approach-avoidance behaviors toward the object.

Building fraction magnitude knowledge with number lines: Partitioning versus analogy.

Understanding fraction magnitudes is foundational for later math achievement. To represent a fraction x/y, children are often taught to use partitioning: Break the whole into y parts and shade in x parts. Past research has shown that partitioning on number lines supports children's fraction magnitude knowledge more than partitioning on area models. However, partitioning may not take full advantage of children's prior knowledge or the structure of the number line. We tested an alternative fraction number line lesson that leveraged children's preexisting whole number knowledge using a domain-general learning tool: analogy. In a preregistered online experiment, second and third graders (N = 84, M = 8.83 years) were randomly assigned to an analogy lesson (e.g., if I know how big 3 is on a 0-4 line, I know how big ¾ is on a 0-1 line), a partitioning lesson on number lines, or a control lesson using square area models. Results showed that the analogy lesson was more effective for promoting fraction magnitude understanding than the control lesson, and it was at least as effective as the partitioning lesson. The analogy group, but not the partitioning group, significantly outperformed the control group with large-denominator fractions at retention (i.e., 1-week delayed posttest) and on transfer tests (i.e., fraction comparison). We also replicated past findings that fraction partitioning lessons are more effective on number lines than on area models, and this advantage was partially sustained after a 1-week delay. Overall, these findings highlight the power of domain-general analogy to support mathematical development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Modeling the value-based decision to consume alcohol in response to emotional experiences.

Evidence for negative reinforcement of alcohol use is mixed; one possible explanation for this is that people make value-based decisions whether to regulate their emotions via alcohol or an alternative, and only drink-to-cope when alcohol's reinforcing value is larger than that of available alternatives. If this is the case, immediately following a negative emotional event, the value for alcohol should increase primarily in heavy drinkers, whereas in light drinkers, alternative ways of coping should be valued. We conducted a preregistered online experiment (N = 200) with a mixed design (between: heavy vs. light drinker; within: negative/neutral/positive mood induction). In each of three experimental sessions, participants first provided value ratings for a set of alcohol and food stimuli. Second, they were subjected to a mood induction. Third, they made forced choices between either two alcohol or food stimuli. We then applied a drift-diffusion model to these data and tested whether alcohol- and food-related decision-making parameters are differentially affected following the mood inductions in heavy and light drinkers. In preregistered analyses, we found that heavy drinkers did not value alcohol more but valued food less after the negative mood induction. Exploratory analyses uncovered that both heavy- and light-drinking participants valued alcohol more following the negative mood induction if they reported high alcohol craving at the start of the session. Collectively, these results provide some evidence for the idea that drinking-to-cope might be a value-based decision-making process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Can We Counteract Hate? Effects of Online Hate Speech and Counter Speech on the Perception of Social Groups

Hate speech can increase stereotyped thinking and social distancing in a society. However, there is still a lack of variety in the social groups under study and research into possible solutions to the problem. Thus, our aim is to (1) study effects of hate speech against Chinese people and transgender people and (2) to investigate if counter speech can offset the detrimental effects of hate speech. We conducted a pre-registered online experiment with a 2 × 3 between-subject design, varying the attacked group (Chinese people/transgender people) and the type of comments (neutral/hate speech/hate speech and counter speech) for an Austrian sample ( n = 1285). Findings reveal no effect of hate speech on the dependent variables, indicating that citizens might not be as vulnerable to hate speech after all. However, counter speech has a polarizing effect: attitudinal gaps and differences for social distancing increase between left-wing and right-wing participants if hate speech is countered.

Evidencing general acceptability of open-label placebo use for tackling overtreatment in primary care: a mixed methods study

BackgroundOvertreatment poses a challenge to healthcare systems due to harmful consequences of avoidable side-effects and costs. This study presents the first account for examining the feasibility of placebo use for reducing overtreatment in primary care, including whether public attitudes support the use of different placebo types in place of inappropriate prescriptions of antibiotics, antidepressants, or analgesics.MethodsWe used a multi-study, mixed-methods design, including patient and public (PPI) consultations, focus groups (Study 1) and two pre-registered online experiments (Studies 2 and 3).ResultsStudy 1 (N = 16) explored everyday conceptions and practicalities of potential placebo use in the context of respiratory infections. Findings highlighted the importance of trusting doctor-patient relationships and safety-netting. Study 2 employed a randomised experiment with a representative UK sample (N = 980), investigating attitudes towards 5 different treatment options for respiratory infections: (1) blinded + pure placebo, (2) open-label + pure placebo, (3) open-label + impure placebo, (4) antibiotic treatment, and (5) no treatment. Study 2 also examined how attitudes varied based on wording and individual differences. Findings indicated general support (ηp2 = .149, large effect size) for replacing inappropriate antibiotics with open-label + impure placebos, although personal placebo acceptability was lower. Also, older people, individuals suffering from chronic illness or those showing higher levels of health anxiety appeared less amenable to placebo use. Study 3 (N = 1177) compared attitudes towards treatment options across three clinical scenarios: respiratory infection, depression and pain. Findings suggested significant differences in the acceptability of placebo options based on the clinical context. In the infection scenario, options for open-label + pure placebos, open-label + impure placebos and no treatment were rated significantly more acceptable (ηp2 = .116, medium effect size) compared to the depression and pain scenarios. Again, general support for placebos was higher than placebo acceptability for personal use.ConclusionsFindings from PPI and three studies indicate general support for combatting overprescribing in primary care through clinical placebo use. This is an indicator for wider UK public support for a novel, behavioural strategy to target a long-standing healthcare challenge. General acceptability appears to be highest for the use of open-label + impure placebos in the context of antibiotic overprescribing.

Can action tendencies be counteracted by inducing incompatible emotions? Considering instances of anxiety and anger.

The incompatible response hypothesis suggests that emotions and other affective states can counteract each other when incompatible. With the present study, we focused on two negative emotions (anger and anxiety) associated with different action tendencies (approach vs. avoidance). Specifically, we wanted to investigate if an anxiety manipulation, subsequent to an anger manipulation, would show a counteracting effect of the approach action tendencies associated with the initial anger manipulation and vice versa for anxiety and avoidance tendencies. We conducted a preregistered online experiment (N=173). We evaluated changes from when the individual (1) was presented with a task in relation to a specific goal (e.g., anxiety induction: recordings of students' view on climate changes), (2) received a subsequent emotion induction framed within an unrelated task and goal (e.g., anger induction: student feedback on changes to the economic student compensation system), (3) after which they were asked to return to the initial task (e.g., from the anger induction back to the anxiety induction). Primary outcomes included visual and verbal measures of action tendencies, and secondary outcomes included appraisals and emotion experience. The results showed no evidence of a counteractive effect by inducing emotions unrelated to the initial task and with incompatible action tendencies. Rather, results pointed to spill-over effects, which should be seen in light of the anger conditions resulting not only in increase anger and irritability but also anxiety and nervousness. The lack of counteractive effects could be due to either the mixed emotions induced by the anger condition or the compatibility of motivational context (i.e., threat) of anxiety and anger. Future research needs to refine the incompatible response hypothesis, honing the ways in which incompatibility is needed for emotion alteration, for instance by investigating the role of the motivational context.

Effects of All-Gender Workplace Facilities Signage on Adults’ Attitudes Toward Transgender and Nonbinary People and Policies

ABSTRACT Signage for gender-segregated and all-gender facilities (e.g. restrooms, locker rooms) represents gender through imagery and language. Adults regularly encounter the visual cues of facilities signage, yet little research examines how they may affect adults’ conceptualization of gender and attitudes toward transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people and related policies. In this preregistered online experiment with a national sample of adults (United States), we test the differential impact of exposure to all-gender and gender-segregated facilities signage in an office workplace scenario on the attitudes of 385 participants. Exposure to all-gender facilities signage in the office environment positively predicted attitudes toward TNB people, and these attitudes were associated with attitudes toward gender-affirming policies. Unexpectedly, prior exposure to all-gender facilities in everyday life (EDL) was associated with more negative attitudes toward TNB people. Signage exposure in the experiment had no significant direct effects on binary conceptualization of gender and policy attitudes, but interaction effects between experimental condition and prior facilities exposure were found for these outcomes. Results from the experiment show a positive immediate impact of all-gender facilities cues on adults’ attitudes toward people whose identities may challenge traditional gender-related norms, but they also reveal potential limitations of all-gender facilities in shifting adults’ attitudes. Social and theoretical implications are discussed.

In bot we trust? Personality traits and reciprocity in human-bot trust games

People are increasingly interacting with forms of artificial intelligence (AI). It is crucial to understand whether accepted evidence for human-human reciprocity holds true for human-bot interactions. In a pre-registered online experiment (N = 539) we first replicate recent studies, finding that the identity of a player's counterpart in a one-shot binary Trust Game has a significant effect on the rate of reciprocity, with bot counterparts receiving lower levels of returned amounts than human counterparts. We then explore whether individual differences in a player's personality traits—in particular Agreeableness, Extraversion, Honesty-Humility and Openness—moderate the effect of the identity of the player's counterpart on the rate of reciprocity. In line with literature on human-human interactions, participants exhibiting higher levels of Honesty-Humility, and to a lesser extent Agreeableness, are found to reciprocate more, regardless of the identity of their counterpart. No personality trait, however, moderates the effect of interacting with a bot. Finally, we consider whether general attitudes to AI affect the reciprocity but find no significant relationship.

Salience, transparency, and self-nudging: a digital nudge to promote healthier food product choices

ABSTRACT Information Systems (IS) research has proposed digital nudges as a promising toolset for supporting consumers in making better decisions. However, there is a vivid academic debate regarding the ethical underpinnings of nudging and potential measures to alleviate ethical concerns. One particularly promising approach to digital nudging is leveraging salience effects. Yet, the potential of digital salience nudges remains underexplored in IS literature, and little is known about how measures proposed to alleviate ethical concerns affect their behavioural impact. In a preregistered online experiment (N = 600), we assess the effects of a digital salience nudge on the healthiness of food product choices. Additionally, we examine how two proposed ethical measures, namely transparency and self-nudging, influence the nudge’s effects. We find that implementing the digital salience nudge in an online supermarket decreased the proportion of unhealthy food products chosen by 63% and increased the proportion of healthy alternatives by 30%. Notably, disclosing transparent information about the nudge did not impact its effectiveness. Offering the nudge as a self-nudge led to comparable effects to a preset nudge when combined with transparent information. We conclude that digital salience nudging is effective and that nudges can be ethically designed without compromising their behavioural impact.

Providing detection strategies to improve human detection of deepfakes: An experimental study

Deepfake videos are becoming more pervasive. In this preregistered online experiment, participants (N = 454, Mage = 37.19, SDage = 13.25, males = 57.5%) categorize a series of 20 videos as either real or deepfake. All participants saw 10 real and 10 deepfake videos. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a list of strategies for detecting deepfakes based on visual cues (e.g., looking for common artifacts such as skin smoothness) or to act as a control group. Participants were also asked how confident they were that they categorized each video correctly (per video confidence) and to estimate how many videos they correctly categorized out of 20 (overall confidence). The sample performed above chance on the detection activity, correctly categorizing 60.70% of videos on average (SD = 13.00). The detection strategies intervention did not impact detection accuracy or detection confidence, with the intervention and control groups performing similarly on the detection activity and showing similar levels of confidence. Inconsistent with previous research, the study did not find that participants had a bias toward categorizing videos as real. Participants overestimated their ability to detect deepfakes at the individual video level. However, they tended to underestimate their abilities on the overall confidence question.

Happiness Scholarship and Redistributive Preferences

Despite a steep rise in income inequality over the past five decades, Americans’ preferences for redistribution have remained stagnant. Previous research suggests that redistributive preferences are rooted in stable institutional and cultural contexts but can change with exposure to information. We investigate the role of understandings of the link between income and psychological well-being in shaping policy preferences. Further, we consider whether effects differ if similar information is framed in terms of disadvantages for the poor versus advantages for the affluent. In a large, preregistered online experiment (N = 2,751), we examined the effects of three common themes in scholarship on happiness and well-being: Money Prevents Unhappiness, Money Provides Happiness, and Money Doesn’t Matter. Results show that learning that Money Prevents Unhappiness (versus the other two themes) increased egalitarian preferences. Effects were moderated by political ideology, income, and subjective social class but not by race. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the current cultural discourse about happiness, which often privileges non-income causes and positive emotions.

Headlines win elections: Mere exposure to fictitious news media alters voting behavior.

Repeatedly encountering a stimulus biases the observer's affective response and evaluation of the stimuli. Here we provide evidence for a causal link between mere exposure to fictitious news reports and subsequent voting behavior. In four pre-registered online experiments, participants browsed through newspaper webpages and were tacitly exposed to names of fictitious politicians. Exposure predicted voting behavior in a subsequent mock election, with a consistent preference for frequent over infrequent names, except when news items were decidedly negative. Follow-up analyses indicated that mere media presence fuels implicit personality theories regarding a candidate's vigor in political contexts. News outlets should therefore be mindful to cover political candidates as evenly as possible.

The development and testing of a pictogram signaling advertising in online videos

Although influencer marketing has become an important advertising strategy, it has one major challenge: its lack of transparency. Young people often struggle to distinguish commercial from non-commercial content, making them particularly susceptible to influencer marketing. In response to the Dutch Media Act, we aim to develop and test a Kijkwijzer pictogram that that clearly signals advertising (i.e. influencer marketing) in online videos to minors (8–18 year-olds). The project comprised three phases: (1) an inventory phase including a cocreation workshop, (2) a survey (N = 248) gaining insights into minors’ associations with a selection of pictograms, and (3) a preregistered online experiment (N = 656) to compare the effectiveness of selected pictograms in increasing advertising literacy. The cocreation workshop and the survey resulted in three pictograms that were associated with advertising and sponsored content and deemed appropriate by the minors to signal influencer marketing in online videos. However, results of the online experiment showed no effects of these pictograms on conceptual and affective advertising literacy. Overall, the findings show the difficulty of creating one effective pictogram that is preferred by all age groups, and the value of the different research phases.

Risky research? Exploring the potentially detrimental effects of employing stigma scales

Research on stigma is confronted with major ethical challenges. One potential risk of investigating stigma utilizing self-reports includes the unintentional reinforcement of stigma. Commonly used self-report scales to assess stigma usually include items that directly confront people with the negative stereotypes underlying the stigma. Even though findings in the domain of priming research suggest that such a way of assessing stigma might potentially activate and reinforce existing stigma-relevant beliefs, research to date has neglected the issue of potential detrimental effects. A preregistered online experiment was conducted with a sample of 762 participants (51.1% female, Mage = 49.7 years, SDage = 16.4, 69.9% with some form of tertiary education). The objective of the study was to explore the potential impact of exposure to stigma scales which incorporate negative stereotypes on the development of stigmatizing attitudes toward two specific groups: individuals who use pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention and patients who undergo weight loss surgery. The findings underline the relevance of the issue by showing that responding to negative stereotypical items on a stigma scale bears the risk of facilitating scale-related stereotype accessibility, negative judgment, and promoting social demarcation from the groups under investigation.

Metacognitive effects of attitudinal (in)congruence on social media: relating processing fluency, subjective knowledge, and political participation.

Encountering political disagreements in our daily lives can discourage us from participating in democratic processes. To date, research has mainly focused on social motives or attitudinal mechanisms to explain this phenomenon. In the present study, we adopt a different approach and highlight metacognitive effects of attitudinal (in)congruence on processing fluency (i.e., perceived ease of processing) and subjective knowledge as well as their relationship with behavioral outcomes such as the intention to politically participate. In a pre-registered online experiment (N = 1,258), participants saw a political social media post with six opinionated user-generated comments. These comments either all matched (congruent condition) or contradicted (incongruent condition) participants' personal opinions. Processing fluency, issue specific subjective knowledge, and intention to politically participate were then measured using established self-report scales. In line with our hypotheses, the congruent stimuli evoked a higher feeling of processing fluency than the incongruent ones (d = 0.21). Furthermore, participants in the congruent condition indicated a higher intention to politically participate (d = 0.23) and rated their own knowledge on the topic as higher (d = 0.22) than participants in the incongruent condition-even though the factual knowledge gain should be equal in both conditions. Finally, we observed positive relationships between processing fluency and subjective issue knowledge (β = 0.11) as well as between subjective issue knowledge and issue-specific political participation (β = 0.43). Our findings highlight the importance of considering metacognitive constructs such as subjective knowledge to explain political behaviors and suggest that attitudinal congruence influences the way we perceive our own knowledge and information processing.

Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence.

We examined the productivity effects of a generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the assistive chatbot ChatGPT, in the context of midlevel professional writing tasks. In a preregistered online experiment, we assigned occupation-specific, incentivized writing tasks to 453 college-educated professionals and randomly exposed half of them to ChatGPT. Our results show that ChatGPT substantially raised productivity: The average time taken decreased by 40% and output quality rose by 18%. Inequality between workers decreased, and concern and excitement about AI temporarily rose. Workers exposed to ChatGPT during the experiment were 2 times as likely to report using it in their real job 2 weeks after the experiment and 1.6 times as likely 2 months after the experiment.

Swipe right? Using beauty filters in male Tinder profiles reduces women's evaluations of trustworthiness but increases physical attractiveness and dating intention

Mobile dating apps are popular platforms to initiate romantic relationships that provide several means for idealized self-presentation—such as the possibility to modify one's photos with the help of beauty filters. Connecting and extending prior theory and research, a model on the influence of filter use on potential dating partners' perceived trustworthiness and attractiveness is proposed. We conducted a pre-registered online experiment (N = 241), showing that (hetero- or bisexual) women perceive male Tinder users with filtered photos (as compared to the same users with unfiltered photos) as more physically attractive—but as less trustworthy. The more attractive and trustworthy the profile owner was perceived, the more likely the women were inclined to date him. Attractiveness had a greater influence on women's dating intention than trustworthiness, leading to a positive overall effect of filter use on dating intention, irrespective of photo-editing experience. Implications are discussed.

Does resource scarcity increase self-serving dishonesty? Most people wrongly believe so.

Does resource scarcity increase people's inclination to engage in self-serving dishonesty? Whereas some theories suggest so, we found no evidence for this across four studies, but a fifth study revealed that most people (wrongly) believe that it does. More precisely, based on three well-powered preregistered online experiments (overall N = 4,193), complemented by two pilot studies (N = 51 and N = 49, respectively) and one manipulation check study (N = 424), we provide evidence that neither exogenously induced resource scarcity nor priming people into a scarcity mindset influences people's inclination to engage in self-serving dishonesty. Furthermore, by linking country-level poverty data to a country-level indicator of self-serving dishonesty based on a recent meta-analysis comprising 47 countries and more than 44,000 participants, we found that people living in poorer countries are no more inclined to engage in self-serving dishonesty than people living in richer countries. Finally, we found that most people-and especially men and people low in Agreeableness versus Anger-wrongly believe that people living in poorer countries are more willing to engage in self-serving dishonesty (N = 658). Overall, our investigation adds new evidence to the burgeoning literature on the link between resource scarcity (in the form of poverty) and unethical behavior (in the form of self-serving dishonesty). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).