'When Cash Costs You: The Pain of Holding – Prolific, January 2023'
(AsPredicted #119530)
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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?
We argue that people sometimes find it more painful to hold on to coins compared to equivalently valued banknotes. We name this the "Pain of Holding" and theorize that it leads people to spend more coins (vs. equivalently valued notes).

Hypothesis 1: When cash is provided as coins (vs. notes), people report greater pain of holding.

Hypothesis 2: People spend more coins (vs. banknotes).

Hypothesis 3: Increased pain of holding explains the effect of cash type (coins vs. notes) on spending.

3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured.
Participants will specify how many of their 10 coins (or notes) they wish to spend on a Dunkin' Donuts gift card using a slider from 0 to 10. Spending behavior will be incentive compatible such that participants will be told that their decision will be executed. 8 participants will be drawn to receive $10 in payment.

After completing the spending DV, participants will rate how much of a pain, annoyance, bother, irritation, and inconvenience their 10 coins or notes are on a 7-point scale (1 = Not at all; 7 = Very much). These items will be tested for reliability using Cronbach's alpha and will be averaged into an index of the pain of holding.

4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to?
Two conditions: 10 coins vs. 10 notes (USD$10)

Participants will first complete a task counting different sums of coins represented graphically on screen to be eligible to receive an additional $10 payment. This $10 payment will then be randomly assigned to be in the form of 10 $1 coins or 10 $1 banknotes.

To reinforce the physicality of the money, participants will be told that they will be contacted to receive their cash and gift card in the mail should they be drawn to receive this. 8 participants (1%) will be drawn to receive their payment. Because of confidentiality, their entire $10 payment will be made digitally via a bonus on Prolific.

5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis.
T-tests will be used to compare mean pain of holding and spending between participants in the coins and notes conditions. We predict that both pain of holding and spending will be higher for the coins condition than for the notes condition.

Mediation regression analysis will then be conducted using model 4 of Hayes' PROCESS plugin (2017). The independent variable is the condition (coins vs notes), the mediator is the pain of holding, and the dependent variable is the amount spent. We predict that the pain of holding mediates the relationship between the condition and the total spend. Specifically, the coins (over the notes) will lead to greater pain of holding, which will lead to greater spending.

6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations.
We include one comprehension check wherein the participant must specify how much money they will receive should they spend $5 on the gift card. Any participants who select a value other than $5 ($10 payment minus $5 spent on gift card = $5 payment) will be excluded from analysis.

We will ask participants if they would like to be included in the study or excluded from it. Any participant that opts out of the study will also be excluded.

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.
We will collect 800 responses.

This number is based on an estimated small effect size (d = .2) of coins on spending, and power analysis using G*Power (α = .05, 1-β = .80), which suggests that approximately 800 responses are needed.

8) Anything else you would like to pre-register?
(e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)
Additionally, participants will complete a subjective valuation procedure (from Polman et al., 2017) after the pain of holding. Specifically, participants will indicate how many they could buy of 5 different products: dozens of eggs, pairs of scissors, loaves of bread, Energizer AA batteries, and Sharpie fine point markers. We will analyze the purchasing power of coins (vs. notes) across these products using an ANOVA. We do not predict any difference in purchasing power between coins and banknotes.

Lastly, we are collecting Socio-Economic Status (SES) using Adler et al.'s (2000) ladder measure. We will run a regression where the dependent variable is spending the independent variables the effects of coins (vs. notes), SES, and their interaction. We do not expect the effect coins (vs. notes) on spending to be moderated by SES.