'RMxSCMotives - Study2 - Tübingen, December 7, 2021'
(AsPredicted #82,199)
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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?
Research question: Does regulatory mode predict preferences for different comparison targets?

Hypothesis1: The more assessment oriented, the more people will compare with their peer rather than their leader.
Hypothesis2: The more locomotion oriented, the more people will compare with their leader rather than their peer.

3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured.
Preferred target of comparison:
Participants will be presented different comparison motives (self-evaluation, self-improvement, self-enhancement and emulation). For each motive, they will be asked to indicate who, between their peer and manager, they would most likely compare themselves with.
Answering format: 7-point Likert scale , first point scale = "Peer", middle point scale = "Peer & Manager to the same extent" and last point scale = "Manager"
The scale is composed of 16 items, with each of the 4 comparison motives represented by 4 items: self-evaluation, self-improvement, and self-enhancement items are adapted from Buunk et al., 2007, and emulation items are adapted from Peters et al., 2018.
The score for the scale will be computed by calculating the mean score of the 16 items of the scale.

Comparison tendencies (included for exploratory purpose):
We will use an adapted version of the above scale and instead ask participants if they often compare for each motive.
The score for the scale will be computed by calculating the mean score of the 16 items of the scale.

4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to?
Measured independent variables:
Regulatory mode, using the items from the Regulatory Mode Questionnaire (Kruglanski et el., 2000). Participants will be asked "Please read each of the following statements and decide how much you agree with each according to your beliefs and experiences", answering format ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 6=strongly agree.
- Assessment mode: 12 items
- Locomotion mode: 12 items
The score for each scale will be computed by calculating the mean score of the 12 items of the scale.

5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis.
To test our hypotheses, we will regress participants comparison target preferences on their assessment mode score and their locomotion mode score.

6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations.
Inclusion criteria:
a) Being between 18 years old and 65 years old.
b) Being an English native speaker (First language English).
c) Having a minimum of 97% approval rate on Prolific.
d) Being employed (employment status "Full-time" or "Part-time", >40%).
e) Having a manager (answer "yes" to the question do you have a direct supervisor at work?).
f) Not having participated in our previous study on the same topic.

Exclusion criteria:
a) Two attention checks will be embedded in the questionnaire. They will consist in items with the instruction to select the response option "1" on a Likert scale. One of these items will be imbedded in the regulatory mode scale, the second item will be imbedded in the items that measure comparison motives. Participants who fail to select "1" on both items will be excluded from the analyses (their participation will not be validated on Prolific).
b) Participants who present as statistical outliers (standardized student > |3|; Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003; Judd, McClelland, & Ryan, 2011) for the dependent measures will be excluded from the analyses.
c) Participants that do not indicate being employed ("Full-time" or "Part-time, > 40%") in the demographic items at the end of the study will be excluded from the analyses.
d) Participants who do not indicate having a manager (answer "yes" to the question do you have a direct supervisor at work?) in the demographic items at the end of the study will be excluded from analyses.

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 cannot estimate the expected effect size for the effects we investigate because this is a new study design and paradigm.
As such, we aim for a sample of 250 participants, which is a recommended sample size to reach stable correlation estimates (Schönbrodt & Perugini, 2013).
To anticipate the possible loss of participants due to our exclusion criteria, we will collect 300 participants in total.

8) Anything else you would like to pre-register?
(e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)
For exploratory purposes, we will consider the four different comparison motives; self-evaluation, self-improvement, self-enhancement and emulation as dependent variables with 4 items each: preferences to compare with a peer rather than a leader might be stronger for self-identification and self-enhancement motives, whereas preferences to compare with a leader rather than with a peer might be stronger for self-improvement and emulation motives.

In addition, as indicated earlier, we will also measure the comparison tendencies. We will investigate whether assessment, locomotion and the comparison motives predict comparaison tendencies in an exploratory manner.