Author(s) This pre-registration is currently anonymous to enable blind peer-review. It has 2 authors.
Pre-registered on 2017/07/08 - 07:05 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? GOAL 1: To replicate patterns of covariation among three Big Five personality aspects [as measured by the Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS; DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson, 2007)]. Patterns of covariation among the personality aspects of Compassion, Openness, and Enthusiasm have been noted within (i) unpublished datasets collected by the present research team, and (ii) datasets published within a seminal paper by DeYoung et al. (2007). Bivariate associations between Compassion/Enthusiasm and between Compassion/Openness consistently emerge; with a smaller bivariate association between Openness/Enthusiasm also emerging less consistently.
In the present study, we will attempt to replicate these previous findings. Specifically, we predict a positive bivariate association between (a) BFAS Compassion and BFAS Enthusiasm; (b) BFAS Compassion and BFAS Openness; and (c) BFAS Openness and BFAS Enthusiasm. Based on these hypothesised associations, we predict (d) that the set of BFAS Compassion, BFAS Enthusiasm, and BFAS Openness items will be reducible to a single ‘C/E/O’ dimension. If hypothesis (1d) is not supported, we will explore an alternative two-dimensional solution characterised by a ‘C/E’ factor and a ‘C/O’ factor.
GOAL 2: To provide a preliminarily evaluation of the psychometric properties of an initial item pool developed by our research team. Given the associations among BFAS Compassion, BFAS Enthusiasm, and BFAS Openness observed in previous studies, we have developed 72 novel items that attempt to capture content that [theoretically] represents each pairwise conjunction of the target aspects (viz., 24 items targeting Compassion/Enthusiasm; 24 items targeting Compassion/Openness; and 24 items targeting Openness/Enthusiasm). The present study thus represents the beginning of a scale development exercise: we will administer our initial item pool for the first time in this initial study, with the intention of gradually refining and reducing the pool across subsequent studies (as informed by data we collect).
In the present study, we will explore relations among our set of novel items to (a) identify potential strengths and weaknesses in the pool; and (b) gain first insight into possible structures within the data.
3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured. This is a correlational design and thus, strictly speaking, there is no dependent (or independent) variable.
4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to? Each participant will be randomly assigned to one of four ‘survey flows’, whereby the relative position of selected measures will differ between each condition. Note that the differences between these conditions are not pertinent to the hypotheses specified in Q1.
5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis. Bivariate correlations will be used to test (1a) to (1c) [support/non-support for our predictions will be ascertained through null-hypothesis significance testing]. Confirmatory (CFA) and exploratory (EFA) factor analysis will be used to test (1d) [support/non-support for our prediction will be ascertained through evaluating the relative ‘strength of evidence’ (e.g., model fit; amount of variance explained)]. Several methods will be used to examine (2a) to (2b) [these will include: examining inter-item correlations, examining internal-consistency estimates, and performing EFA. ‘Item response theory’ techniques may also be deployed. Additional exploratory analyses (described in Q5 below) will also be performed to supplement these methods].
6) Any secondary analyses? We will explore relations between our novel items and the BFAS Compassion, Openness, and Enthusiasm aspects. As a lower priority, we may also explore relations between our novel items and the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2; Soto & John, in press), HEXACO Personality Inventory (Revised; HEXACO-PI-R; Lee & Ashton, in press), Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES; Crimston et al., 2016), and Moral Imagination Inventory (MII; Kingsley, 2011). We would focus on whether certain facets within the BFI-2 and HEXACO-PI-R converge with their conceptual analogues in our item pool (viz., BFI-2 Agreeableness facets <> C content; BFI-2 Open-Mindedness facets <> O content; BFI-2 Extraversion facets <> E content; HEXACO-PI-R Altruism facet <> C content), and whether Moral Expansiveness and Moral Imagination converge with C/O and/or C/O/E content. Whilst these associations all make conceptual sense, we present them as exploratory because we do not yet have information about the psychometric soundness of our novel items.
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 aim to recruit N = 800 participants. We expect ~10% to fail our attention checks (based on previous experience as well as pilot testing; see Q7 below). If we excluded such participants from our analyses, our final sample would be ~N = 720. We selected this target N to ensure the lowest of our sample-size to item (relevant to EFA) and sample-size to free-parameter (relevant to CFA) ratios would equal 10:1, which is a commonly-adopted value in EFA studies (Costello & Osborne, 2005; Henson & Roberts, 2006) and a recommended minimum value for CFA (Kline, 2016). Our target N therefore places a sensible cap on the “more is better” principle (Costello & Osborne, 2005, p. 5); allowing us to conserve resources. Notably, we will also have 100% power to detect a typical bivariate correlation in personality psychology (i.e., r = .21; Fraley & Marks, 2007), which well exceeds the recommended minimum of 80% (Cohen, 1992).
8) Anything else you would like to pre-register? (e.g., data exclusions, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?) Participants may be excluded for incomplete data or failure to correctly respond to attention checks. This data is being collected as part of a broader research program that involves multiple researchers. Consequently, additional questionnaires [viz., Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (Różycka-Tran, Boski, & Wojciszke, 2015); The Dirty Dozen (Jonason & Webster, 2010)] and tasks [viz., Slider Measure of Social Value Orientation (Murphy, Ackermann, & Handgraaf, 2011); Social Mindfulness Paradigm (Van Doesum, Van Lange, & Van Lange, 2013)] will be administered for specific purposes that are largely unrelated to the goals described in this pre-registration (hence any predictions pertaining to them have not been described). A pilot test (N = 10) was performed to evaluate the mechanical aspects of our study (e.g., % passing attention checks) and to identify any technical issues. These 10 participants will not be included in any analyses. No data beyond this pilot test have been collected yet.
