'Abdication: eGift Cards'
(AsPredicted #5,429)
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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 plan to test whether abdication prompts reciprocity when people allocate eGift Cards between themselves and another individual. Specifically, we hypothesize that people who allocate the gift cards after another individual relinquishes control (“abdication” participants) will be generous more often than people who allocate gift cards while being responsible for choosing from the beginning (“baseline” participants).

3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured.
We will measure people’s choice to choose generously or selfishly. Additionally, we will ask each participant to rate the other person’s generosity by answering the following item: “To what extent do you feel like the other participant is generous?” (1 = Not at all; 7 = Completely)

4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to?
Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two between-participants conditions: baseline or abdication.

5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis.
We will test for differences between the proportions of “baseline” and “abdication” participants who give the higher-value gift card to the other individual.

6) Any secondary analyses?
We will conduct two secondary analyses: (1) We will test whether participants’ evaluations of the other individual’s generosity differ between the baseline and abdication conditions; and (2) we will test whether evaluations of the other participant’s generosity mediate the relationship between condition (baseline or abdication) and choice (selfish or generous).

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 target 128 participants per each of 2 conditions after exclusions. After recruiting 128 participants per condition, we will compute the number of participants in each condition that meet inclusion criteria. If fewer than 128 participants in any condition meet inclusion criteria, we will continue recruiting participants in that condition until 128 participants in each condition meet inclusion criteria.

8) Anything else you would like to pre-register?
(e.g., data exclusions, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)
Before participants allocate the gift cards, they will complete filler items about Amazon’s acquisition of the Whole Foods supermarket chain. Participants will respond to the following three items:

How do you expect that this will affect…
(1) …the quality of products offered at Whole Foods?
(2) ...the price of products offered at Whole Foods?
(3) ...your likelihood of shopping at Whole Foods?

Each filler item will be rated on a seven-point Likert scale with anchors at -3 (Much lower), 0 (Neither lower than higher), and 3 (Much higher). Additionally, for each filler item, participants will also be given the option “Don’t know / Haven’t heard about this”. We do not have predictions about people’s responses to these items.

Additionally, at the start of each day of data collection, we will collect “filler” participants. Each of these participants will be given two options: (1) choose between the two gift cards yourself; or (2) abdicate the decision to another person who will participate in the same study later the same day. Each day we will recruit participants in this “filler” condition until one filler participant abdicates. We include the filler condition simply to conform to the no-deception policy at this study location, such that participants in the “abdication” condition are not deceived when they are told that another person abdicated the decision earlier the same day. We do not have predictions about the proportion of filler participants who will choose versus abdicate or about the proportions of filler participants that will choose generously versus selfishly, and therefore, we do not plan to analyze the data provided by filler participants.

Participants will be asked to report demographics (gender, age, ethnicity). We will remove from all analyses any participants who withdraw from the study before completing study procedures. Data from these participants will not be analyzed. Finally, we will also exclude from analyses participants who do not follow instructions or for whom there is experimenter error.