'Study 2 - self-affirmation and the effects of status on SWB' (AsPredicted #6864)
Author(s) This pre-registration is currently anonymous to enable blind peer-review. It has 2 authors.
Pre-registered on 2017/11/20 - 01:52 PM (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? Prior research (Anderson, Kraus, Galinsky, & Keltner, 2012) has shown that individuals social status, or the respect, admiration, and influence they have in their group, shapes their subjective well-being (SWB). In a follow-up laboratory study we manipulated participants’ relative social status in a laboratory group. This suggested that people have a highly competitive orientation toward status. First, they experienced higher subjective well-being (SWB) when others had lower, rather than higher status; that is, they felt better when others were less respected, admired, and had less influence than when those others were more respected, admired and had more influence. Second, they experienced higher SWB in the self-high status / others-low status conditions than in the self-high status / others-high status conditions. In other words, they felt better when they alone were respected highly than when they and everyone else were respected highly and equally. Third, they experienced the same SWB in the self-high status / others-high status condition than they did in the self-low status / others-low status conditions. This suggests they felt no better when everyone was highly and equally respected than when everyone was equally respected but to a lesser degree; all that seemed to matter to their SWB was whether they had higher status.
The current study focuses on two related questions. First, is the impact of social status on subjective well-being (SWB) mitigated after people self-affirm? Second, does self-affirmation mitigate a person’s competitive orientation toward status? We hypothesized that because self-affirmation (i.e., thinking about values important to the self; Cohen et al. 2006) broadens people’s perspective with which they view self-relevant information and can diminish threats to the self (Sherman, 2013), it would diminish the importance of social status to one’s SWB, and thereby mitigate people’s competitive reactions to receiving status-relevant information.
3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured. Measures of SWB will include positive affect, negative affect (reverse scored), and satisfaction with life measures. Standard likert scales, z-scored as appropriate to combine into single measure of well-being (see Anderson, Kraus, Galinsky & Keltner, 2012 for details).
4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to? Subjects will be randomly assigned to eight between-subject conditions in which they (1) either self-affirm or not, then (2) receive feedback about their status in a group as well as the average status that members of the group received. The design will be a 2 (self-affirmation vs. no self-affirmation) x 2 (own status = high vs. low) x 2 (average status of members in the group = high vs. low) between subjects.
Participants will complete the standard values self-affirmation manipulation used in prior research (see Cohen, Garcia, Apfel & Master, 2006 Experiment 2 SOM) in which they select the three most important values (/least important values) from a list of 9 values, then describe why these values are important to them (/might be important to someone else), then list the top two reasons why the values are important to them (/might be important to someone else) and then rate the extent to which they agree or disagree with 4 statements related to the values (e.g. These values have influenced me /some people).
Participants will then receive feedback on their status. They will be told that the range of possible status ratings the they could receive was 1 to 7 (using the scale most commonly employed in status research) and that their own status (i.e. the median status ratings given to them by other members of your group) was either a 4 (own status = low conditions) or a 6 (in the own status = high conditions).
They will also be told that other group members’ average status (i.e. the median status ratings that all of the other members of your group received) was either a 4 (in the others’ status = low conditions) or 6 (in the other’ status = high conditions).
5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis. First, we will check whether those in the no self-affirmation condition exhibit similar responses to the status feedback as in our prior study – whether their SWB is affected by the status feedback (providing a conceptual replication of Anderson et al., 2012), and whether they exhibit a competitive orientation to status, replicating our recent laboratory study.
A main effects test for own status (high vs. low) on SWB will be conducted to examine whether participants enjoy higher well-being when their own status is higher than when it is lower (replicating the effect that status affects SWB).
Additional analyses will test whether these findings replicate the prior results suggesting that people have a competitive orientation toward status. First, a main effects test for others’ status (high vs. low) on SWB will be conducted to examine whether participants enjoy higher well-being when others’ status is lower than when it is higher. Second for participants in the high status condition, simple effects test will be conducted to confirm that they enjoy higher well-being when others status is lower compared to when others status is higher. Third a pairwise contrast will be conducted between participants in the self-high status /others-high status and those in the self-low status /others-low status conditions, with the hypotheses that these two conditions will be equal in SWB.
Next, we will examine whether these effects change in the self-affirmation conditions in the following ways: First, is the effect of self status on SWB lower in magnitude in the self-affirmation condition than in the no affirmation condition? This will involve a 2-way interaction between self-affirmation (self-affirmation vs. no self-affirmation) and self status (high vs. low). Second, is the effect of others’ status on SWB lower in magnitude in the self-affirmation condition than in the no affirmation condition? This will involve a 2-way interaction between self-affirmation (self-affirmation vs. no self-affirmation) and others’ status (high vs. low). Third, is the difference between self-high / others-low condition and self-high / others-high condition lower in magnitude in the self-affirmation condition than in the no affirmation condition? This will involve a 2-way interaction between self-affirmation (self-affirmation vs. no self-affirmation) and the self-high / others-low condition and self-high / others-high condition. Finally, along an exploratory vein, we will examine whether the difference between self-high / others-high condition and self-low / others-low condition is higher in magnitude in the self-affirmation condition than in the no affirmation condition? This will involve a 2-way interaction between self-affirmation (self-affirmation vs. no self-affirmation) and the self-low/ others-low condition and self-high / others-high condition.
6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations. Participants failing simple attention checks and comprehension checks or who fail to complete the study for any reason will be automatically removed from the study and their records deleted.
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. A target of 400 subjects will be recruited (i.e. on average 50 per condition). Participants will be recruited in groups of 5 or 10 subjects. Recruitment will continue until 400 participants have completed the study.
The sample size is consistent with currently typical sample sizes (50 per condition) and those used in studies that examine the nature of status on well-being.
8) Anything else you would like to pre-register? (e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?) N/A
