'Social Networks in BPD during a Corona-Pandemic Lockdown in Germany'
(AsPredicted #59309)
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1) Have any data been collected for this study already?
It's complicated. We have already collected some data but explain in Question 8 why readers may consider this a valid pre-registration nevertheless.

2) What's the main question being asked or hypothesis being tested in this study?
Q1: Do individuals with a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) differ from healthy control individuals (HC) in regard to the size and diversity of their social network, the frequency of social contacts in different communication channels, the subjective importance of physical proximity (PP) (comprising the positivity of touch, the need for touch and the relevance of touch in different social domains), and the level of experienced social isolation?
H1: We expect a smaller size and diversity of the social networks, a lower frequency of social contacts in different communication channels, a lower importance of PP, particularly positivity of social touch and a higher level of experienced social isolation in the BPD group compared with the HC group.
Q2: Does the frequency of social contacts in different social communication channels predict the level of experienced social isolation and does the strength of this relationship depend on the importance of PP?
H2: A higher frequency of face-to-face (FtFC) and virtual contacts (VC) predicts a lower level of experienced social isolation. This association is moderated by the importance of PP, i.e. the relation is for FtFC stronger and in VC attenuated in those with a high importance of PP.
Q3: Does the reported level of childhood traumatization predict the subjective importance of PP and is this relation moderated by the subjectively reported capacity to feel close to others as one dimension of attachment?
H3: A higher level of childhood traumatization predicts a lower importance of PP. The relationship of the severity of childhood trauma and subjective importance of PP is moderated by the degree of the capacity to feel close to others as one dimension of attachment. This is particularly true for the experienced positivity of social touch in contrast to the need for social touch and the relevance of physical proximity in different social domains.

3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured.
Size and diversity of social network, frequency of social contacts and relevance of touch: Social Network Index (SNI; Cohen, Doyle, Skoner, Rabin, & Gwaltney, 1997). Extended for each of the social domains by items assessing the frequency of different communication channels, the relevance of social touch (adapted from Suvilehto, Glerean, Dunbar, Hari, and Nummenmaa (2015)) and the closeness to members of the social domains
Subjective social isolation: University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale (ULS-R; Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980), German version (Döring & Bortz, 1993)
Need for social touch: Need for Interpersonal Touch Scale (NITS; Nuszbaum, Voss, & Klauer, 2014)
Positivity of social touch: pleasantness ratings of video-clips (Socio-affective touch expression database; (Lee Masson & Op de Beeck, 2018) displaying scenes of neutral and positive social and non-social touch
Severity of childhood trauma: short form of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-SF; Bernstein et al., 2003; German version: Klinitzke, Romppel, Hauser, Brahler, & Glaesmer, 2012)
Atttachment-related attitudes: Adult Attachment Scale (Schmidt, Strauss, Hoger, & Brahler, 2004) with the subscales closeness, dependence and anxiety, measuring different dimensions of attachment

4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to?
Every group will undergo the same experimental procedure. For further details of the experimental conditions of the different tasks see 3).

5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis.
Q1: Independent sampled t-tests, Mann-Whitney-U-Test as appropriate
Q2: Multiple regression analyses and moderator analyses
Q3: Moderator analyses

6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations.
Participants exhibiting scores ±2.5 SD from the mean and participants with exceptionally fast processing (less than 60% of the average duration) will be excluded from the 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.
It is planned to recruit 80 healthy individuals and 80 individuals with BPD who have participated in studies at our institute in the past and have agreed to be contacted again for participation in further scientific studies.

8) Anything else you would like to pre-register?
(e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)
Due to the rapid and unpredictable changes in the course of the Corona pandemic we have started data collection to capture the concepts of interest during a lockdown mandated by the German government. The lockdown conditions are still the same. However, we have neither inspected nor started the data analyses.
Additionally, we also want to exploratory examine whether BDP and HC differ regarding the adaption of their communication channels. Please note, that the current study is part of a larger survey assessing beyond the described parameters e.g. psychopathology, social judgments and social comparison processes.