Among primates, the human female life cycle appears special. Aspects of these life cycles have been linked to the acquisition and distribution of resources and to environmental factors, as well as to individual differences across human females. Many questions remain regarding the causal roles that these (or also other) factors might have played in the evolution of human female life cycles – and also whether generalizing statements about these life cycles can adequately capture the wide range of the observed phenomena.

 

In the current study, Varas Enriquez et al. (2024) outline a plan for an agent-based model approach to study the factors that guide and channel variability in female life cycles in humans (within biological constraints), via the effects that their model will capture. The authors’ model has a particular eye towards the effects of resource dynamics (resource production and resource transfers) and environmental conditions – and their interplay. The results of this agent based model will be thoroughly analysed to better understand the evolution of the specific female human life cycle range.

 

The study plan was refined after one round of review, which led to input from two external reviewers and the recommender. The revised (second) version was judged to satisfy the Stage 1 criteria for in-principle acceptance.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/24c7z
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 2. At least some data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question has been accessed and partially observed by the authors, but the authors certify that they have not yet observed the key variables within the data that will be used to answer the research question AND they have taken additional steps to maximise bias control and rigour (e.g. conservative statistical threshold; recruitment of a blinded analyst; robustness testing, multiverse/specification analysis, or other approach)
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 

 

Varas Enríquez, P. J., Lukas, D., Colleran, H, Mulder, M. B., & Redhead, D. (2024) The role of resource dynamics in the distribution of life cycles within a female human population. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/24c7z

Effective effort regulation is central for self-control and has been a focus of psychological research for many decades. It is well established that challenging cognitive tasks, which impose self-control demands due to their complexity, are perceived as more effortful and require greater physiological activation than simpler tasks. However, the experience and allocation of effort during a task, whether easy or difficult, likely depends on more than these inherent self-control demands. Another key factor is boredom, which can arise during task execution. Yet, the role of boredom and the interplay with perceived task difficulty over time remains underexamined.

 

Based on these considerations, Radtke et al. (2024) aim to examine how boredom and task difficulty influence both subjective and objective measures of effort. They propose that subjective cognitive effort consists of both boredom-related and difficulty-related components, hypothesizing that both factors together more accurately predict objective effort allocation than task difficulty alone. The proposed study will use a within-subject design, in which participants perform two versions of the Stroop task: an easy version with only congruent trials and a hard version. Thought probes during the task will track subjective boredom, fatigue, perceived difficulty, and effort. Phasic and stimulus-evoked pupil dilation will serve as an objective index of cognitive effort, while a subsequent flanker task will assess effects on secondary task performance. 

 

The authors predict that the easy Stroop version will result in lower perceived difficulty but higher boredom, as well as fewer errors and faster reaction times compared to the hard version. Over time, boredom and perceived effort due to boredom are expected to increase, while perceived task difficulty and effort attributed to difficulty are anticipated to decrease. Linear Mixed Models will be employed to determine whether phasic and stimulus-evoked pupil dilation can be predicted by effort attributed to boredom, difficulty, or both. This innovative approach combines objective and subjective measures and promises to deepen our understanding of the cognitive demands posed by boredom, with significant implications for research on effort regulation and motivation. 

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by four expert reviewers in two rounds of in-depth review. Following responses from the authors, the recommender determined that Stage 1 criteria were met and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly Journals:
 

 
References

Radtke, V., Wolff, W., & Martarelli, C. S. (2024). How effortful is boredom? Studying self-control demands through pupillometry. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/38qz4

What relationship can be expected between secularization, rationalisation and insecurity? While some authors argue that rationalisation reduces the willingness to belong to religious groups, others have suggested that insecurity increases this need to belong to religious groups.

 

In the current study, Lang and Chvaja (2024) will adjudicate between these two possibilities using an economics game in participants from two countries: US and Poland. The central question posed by the authors is whether cooperative insecurity increases the probability of joining a religious normative group. They will test the relationship between an environment (secure and insecure) and institution (which related to the norm context: religious and secular) on the probability of choosing the normative group in an experimental setting. Therefore, the study will be a quantitative analysis.

 

The authors included an adequate power analysis, alternatives for non-supported hypotheses, and filtering to ensure a high quality of data collection. They also undertook a pilot study to ensure the quality of the procedure and sensitivity of the analyses.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review. Based on ​detailed responses to reviewers’ and the recommender’s comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance.​​​

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 
References
 
1.Lang, M. & Chvaja, R. (2024). Mechanisms of secularization: Testing between the rationalization and existential insecurity theories. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/yzgek

​

Revisiting a true classic, this registered replication report addresses Kahneman and Tversky’s (1973) introduction of the representativeness heuristic. The heuristic refers to deviations of judgments from normative evaluations of the evidence when the stimulus fits to a prototype. For instance, when an individual is described by features stereotypically associated with a certain target group (e.g., a person who attends dance training several times a week and has a passion for singing and performing), likelihood judgments that the individual belongs to a target group (K-Pop artists) compared to a non-target group (e.g., accountants) are inflated. 

The impact of the original research on the field is clearly immense and long-lasting. All the better that a systematic replication attempt is being undertaken in this registered report, which addresses studies 1 through 7 of Kahneman and Tversky’s classic 1973 paper. Chan and Feldman (2024) propose a well-powered online study, in which all studies from the original article are presented to participants within-subjects. The materials are carefully constructed and closely documented in the accompanying OSF project, where in-depth information on planned data analyses is supported with a simulated dataset.  

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over three rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. Data collection commenced during the later part of Stage 1 peer review; however, since no substantive changes to the design were made after this point, the risk of bias due to prior data observation remains zero and the manuscript therefore qualifies for Level 6.

 

 

 

1. Chan, H. C. & Feldman, G. (2024). Representativeness heuristic in intuitive predictions: Replication Registered Report of problems reviewed in Kahneman and Tversky (1973). In principle acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/er2cq

 

2. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 80(4), 237–251. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034747

 

This study aims to examine the associations between personality traits, using the big-5 personality model (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and compliance with pandemic measures (e.g. handwashing), and perceived risk of the pandemic to the individual, in a representative sample of the adult Norwegian population.

 

Several previous studies have examined associations between personality and adherence to medical advice using measures administered at the same point in time the during COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. Götz et al., 2021), however the dataset the current investigators plan to use assessed personality one year prior to the pandemic (May/June 2019) and the risk and compliance measures four months into the pandemic (August/September 2020). 
 
Here, Sætrevik et al. (2024) make a number of hypotheses, including that conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and neuroticism will be positively associated with compliance; extraversion will be negatively associated with compliance; extraversion and openness will be negatively associated with perceived risk; and finally, neuroticism will be positively associated with perceived risk. They plan to test their hypotheses using linear regression analyses.
 
Importantly, given the topic, the data for this study already exists and some response distributions of the compliance and risk measures have been examined. However, the authors have yet to link the data on personality to the data on compliance and risk, which is the focus of their hypotheses.  
 
The findings from this study will help us to understand the personality characteristics associated with infection control measures and individual risk perceptions of viral illnesses during a pandemic. 
 
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two expert reviewers in two rounds of in-depth review. Following responses from the authors, the recommender determined that Stage 1 criteria were met and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 1. At least some of the data/evidence that will be used to the answer the research question has been accessed and observed by the authors, including key variables, but the authors certify that they have not yet performed any of their preregistered analyses, and in addition they have taken stringent steps to reduce the risk of bias.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Personality Science
  
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open

 

1. Costa, P. T., and McCrae, R. R. (1992). The five-factor model of personality and its relevance to personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 6, 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.1992.6.4.343
 
2. Götz, F. M., Gvirtz, A., Galinsky, A. D., and Jachimowicz, J. M. (2021). How personality and policy predict pandemic behavior: Understanding sheltering-in-place in 55 countries at the onset of COVID-19. The American psychologist, 76, 39–49. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000740

 

3. Sætrevik, B., Erevik, E. K., and Bjørkheim, S. B. (2024). Personality traits predict perception of pandemic risk and compliance with infection control measures. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/p5sjb