'Study 2: An Intersectional Lens on Young Leaders, February 2023' (AsPredicted #122679)
Author(s) This pre-registration is currently anonymous to enable blind peer-review. It has 3 authors.
Pre-registered on 02/21/2023 04:17 AM (PT)
1) Have any data been collected for this study already? No, no data have been collected for this study yet.
2) What's the main question being asked or hypothesis being tested in this study? In this study, we first test a potential age bias against young leaders compared to middle-aged and older leaders. Therefore, we propose the following hypotheses: H1a/b: Young leaders are assigned lower leadership status than (a) middle-aged leaders and (b) older leaders.
Further, we test if the age bias towards young leaders compared to middle-aged and older leaders prevail if gender information is added (i.e., the intersection of young age with gender). Specifically, we compare young female leaders with middle-aged female leaders and older female leaders, as well as young male leaders with middle-aged male leaders and older male leaders.
3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured. The key dependent variable of Study 2 will be perceived leader status. Perceived leader status will be measured with the following four items from a scale by Djurdjevic et al. (2017): "This leader possesses high status in my organization.", "This leader occupies a respected position in my organization.", "This leader has a position of prestige in my organization." and "This leader possesses a high level of prominence in my organization." Participants use a 7-point scale to indicate perceived leader status (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).
4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to? We will conduct an experimental study with eleven conditions in a between-subjects design in which participants rate a leader from a specific target group. We divide this study into three sub-studies focusing on the target's
(a) gender (i.e., two conditions: female person, male person),
(b) age (i.e., three conditions: young person, middle-aged person, older person), and
(c) intersections of age and gender (i.e., six conditions: young female person, middle-aged female person, older female person, young male person, middle-aged male person, older male person).
Participants will read the following scenario before rating their target group regarding perceived leader status: "On the following pages, you will find a series of statements and questions. When answering these questions, please imagine working in an organization where a [condition-dependent target group member] is your current leader. In making your judgments, it may be helpful to imagine that you are about to meet your leader for the first time, and the only thing you know in advance is that your leader is a [target group]. How do you feel about a [target group] as your current leader?"
5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis. To test our main questions and hypotheses, we will conduct a series of ANOVAs. Fisher's least significant difference (LSD) method will be used to test the planned comparisons of target groups.
6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations. We will use understandability and diligence checks to ensure high data quality.
(1) We will exclude participants with insufficient command of the English language (i.e., participants that indicate basic communication skills/working knowledge [A1 to A2] on an English proficiency scale).
(2) We will exclude participants who self-report careless responses using a single item ("should we use your data for our scientific analyses?; e.g., Meade & Craig, 2012).
Further, we will include two attention-check questions where participants have to indicate their respective target group in terms of age (i.e., young, middle-aged, older, not indicated) and gender (i.e., male, female, not indicated; i.e., categorical attention checks; Oppenheimer et al., 2009). The attention checks will be used as a control variable in our analyses (i.e., a dummy variable will be coded 1 if at least one of the two questions regarding the respective target group is answered incorrectly; if both questions are answered correctly, the dummy variable will be coded 0). We can report the results with and without participants who failed the attention checks and can report the results with and without the dummy variable.
7) How many observations will be collected or what will determine sample size? No need to justify decision, but be precise about exactly how the number will be determined. An a priori power analysis based on the effect size from Study 1 indicated that 968 participants are needed to obtain 95% power for detecting the expected small to medium effect (Cohens f = .16) at α = 0.05 (Faul et al., 2009). Therefore, we aim to recruit 1000 participants via the panel provider CloudResearch Connect (https://connect.cloudresearch.com).
We will collect data from a heterogeneous sample of U.S. citizens between 18 and 69 years. To build a representative sample of the United States, we employ quotas that are based on recent U.S. census for gender (49.5% men, 50.5% women), age (18-29 years: 25%, 30-44: 30%, 45-59: 27%, 60-69:18%), ethnicity (81.3% not Hispanic or Latino, 18.7 Hispanic or Latino), race (76% White, 14% Black, 10% Asian, American Indian, Native American, and Other), and political orientation (9% conservative, 27% somewhat conservative, 37% moderate, 17% somewhat liberal, 7% liberal, 3% no opinion). Deviations from this goal can be due to the software employed by the panel provider and are outside of our control.
8) Anything else you would like to pre-register? (e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?) In line with Study 1, we will measure additional variables that are not core to our hypotheses, such as perceived leader effectiveness and leader liking. Perceived leader effectiveness will be assessed with the following three items (e.g., Giessner & van Knippenberg, 2008; Gündemir et al., 2019): "This leader is a good leader," "This leader is effective as a leader," and "This leader is successful as a leader." Leader liking will be measured with three items (Rudman et al., 2012): "How much do you like this leader?"; "Is this leader someone you want to get to know better?"; and "Would this leader be popular with colleagues?". Participants will use a 7-point scale to indicate perceived leader status (1 = not at all to 7 = very much).
Further, participants will answer questions regarding their social dominance orientation (SDO) and political orientation. Participants will indicate their social dominance orientation with the SDO7 short scale (Ho et al., 2015). Participants will use a 7-point scale to indicate social dominance orientation (1 = strongly oppose to 7 = strongly favor). Political orientation will be measured with a single item on a 7-point scale from "1 = very liberal" to "7 = very conservative" (e.g., Talaifar & Swann, 2019). A demographic questionnaire will conclude the study.
