Inequalities in income, wealth, and opportunities are rampant both between and within nations around the world. Making strides to rectify inequalities requires examining how people come to understand them as well as the psychological processes that translate those understandings into reparative actions. There is some evidence for a “comparative framing effect,” in which the group that is initially referenced impacts judgements by communicating salient information and the appropriate reference point. Research on this comparative framing effect suggests that focusing on disadvantage, relative to advantage, leads to a more negative assessment and intentions to engage in action to reduce the inequality. 

 

In two pilot studies (reported in the current proposal) focused on global inequalities (low-income vs high-income countries), Schnepf et al. (2023) did not find evidence for a main effect of framing on perceived legitimacy of the inequality or intentions to engage in action. They did, however, find some evidence for an interaction with the perceived size of the inequality. When the low-income country was the subject of the comparison, larger perceptions of the size of the inequality were associated with greater intentions to engage in action (both studies) and greater perceptions of the differences as illegitimate (Study 1 only). Moreover, they found some evidence in both studies that negative social emotions such as guilt and shame were the mechanism that explained why perceiving greater inequality in the low-income framing condition was associated with the outcomes. 

 

In the current study, Schnepf et al. (2023) build upon these two pilot studies to conduct a high-quality replication and a stronger test of their hypotheses. Most notably, the proposed Registered Report uses a much larger sample, providing adequate statistical power to detect relatively small interaction effects. Additionally, the proposed project manipulates the size of the inequality that is being evaluated, rather than relying on participants’ perceptions. Finally, the study includes “justice sensitivity,” or the degree to which individuals assess inequality as unfair as an additional hypothesized moderator, and “social dominance orientation” as an exploratory moderator. Along with the pilot studies, the proposed project will represent a strong test of several hypotheses relevant to many different areas of social and personality psychology. 

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth peer review, both of which consisted of substantial comments from two scholars with relevant expertise. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and was therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/pgyvw
 
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:

 

 

 

1. Schnepf, J., Reese, G., Bruckmüller, S., Braun, M., Rotzinger, J., & Martiny, S. E. (2023). Justice in the eye of the beholder: How comparison framing affects the perception of global inequality through social emotions and justice sensitivity. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/pgyvw

There are two fundamental processes that the brain engages in: statistical learning and selection. Indeed, past work has shown these processes often come together: People can use a task-irrelevant stimulus to predict a target stimulus even in different modalities (crossmodal statistical learning), thereby enhancing the processing of the target stimulus (selection). Further, people can learn where a distractor will be in order to efficiently suppress it (selecting out), using task irrelevant stimuli in the same modality (within-modality statistical learning).

 

In the current study, Jagini and Sunny will test whether people can learn where a distractor stimulus is, in order to suppress it (selecting out), using a task-irrelevant stimulus from a different modality (cross modal statistical learning). They will also test whether people can express awareness of the relation between the predictor task-irrelevant stimulus and the location of the distractor on a forced choice test. On some (but not other) theories of consciousness, such a test measures conscious knowledge of the association.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two 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).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qjbmg

 

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. 

 

 

 

1. Jagini, K. K. & Sunny, M. M. (2022). Do task-irrelevant cross-modal statistical regularities induce distractor suppression in visual search? Stage 1 Registered Report, in principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/qjbmg

For centuries, the relationship between creativity and mental health has been a subject of fascination, propelled by the impression that many of the most famous artists in history likely suffered from mood disorders or other mental illnesses. However, with the advent of psychological science – including more precise and diagnostic clinical measures – the empirical evidence for an association between creativity and depressive symptoms has been mixed, with some studies suggesting a positive relationship and others showing either no effect or indicating that the link, if there is one, may be driven by other personality characteristics (Verhaeghen et al., 2005).

 

In the current study, Lam and Saunders will use an online design in 200 participants to ask whether creativity is associated with higher depressive traits, and further, whether that relationship depends on two additional variables that could explain an observed positive correlation: self-reflective rumination (repetitive thoughts that maintain a negative mood state) and the frequency with which individuals engage in reappraisal (a regulation strategy that involves reinterpreting an event or situation to diminish its negative impact). If justified by the main confirmatory findings, the authors will also explore the moderating role of gender and how any observed associations are reflected in more fine-grained measures of creativity. The results promise to shed light on not only the basic question of whether creativity is related to depressive traits, but the extent to which that association depends on related determinants of mental health.

 

Following two rounds of in-depth review, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).  

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/yub7n
 
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. Verhaeghen, P., Joormann, J., & Khan, R. (2005). Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood, and creativity. Emotion, 5(2), 226-232. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.2.226

 

2. Lam, C. Y. & Saunders, J. A. (2022). Relationship between creativity and depression: the role of reappraisal and rumination, in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/yub7n

In recent years, the study of mental accounting – the thought processes by which people informally record, categorise, and evaluate the costs and benefits of their financial transactions – has been an active research area, drawing attention to a range of biases and distortions that deviate from optimal economic decision-making (Zhang & Sussman, 2018). Although the term “mental accounting” is a relatively recent construction (Thaler, 1999), it stems from a longer history of behavioural economic research on value functions, decision frames, risk-taking, and related concepts.

 

In the current study, Li and Feldman propose to replicate 17 influential mental accounting problems (or tasks) reviewed by Thaler (1999) in a large online sample. The authors also propose several extensions examining the effects of sunk costs and expenses framing. 

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two 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).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/d6cjk

 

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. 

 

 

 

1. Zhang, C. Y., & Sussman, A. B. (2018). Perspectives on mental accounting: An exploration of budgeting and investing. Financial Planning Review, 1, e1011. https://doi.org/10.1002/cfp2.1011

 

2. Thaler, R. H. (1999). Mental accounting matters. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, 183-206. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0771(199909)12:3%3C183::AID-BDM318%3E3.0.CO;2-F

 

3. Li, M. & Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting mental accounting classic paradigms: Replication of the problems reviewed in Thaler (1999), in principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/d6cjk

Paid loot boxes, i.e. randomised monetization methods that are similar to lottery-type gambling, have become prominent features of contemporary gaming (e.g., Macey & Bujić, 2022). Because the design structures of loot boxes vary and the value of their virtual rewards is not always clear-cut, many countries now struggle how to deal with them legally and in practice (see Drummond et al., 2020). Belgium is one of the few countries that have officially interpreted loot box monetization to widely belong under gambling regulation. Mobile games that monetize with paid loot boxes in Belgium should thus apply for a gambling license, and companies should generally not offer paid loot boxes to local underage players at all.
 
In this Stage 1 Registered Report, Xiao (2022) has constructed a careful plan for testing whether the “ban” in Belgium has made the local mobile game market distinct in terms of paid loot boxes. The work builds on a rapidly accumulating literature and evolving methods (e.g., Xiao et al., 2021). The author will carry out a systematic qualitative investigation of the country’s top 100 (iPhone) mobile games to investigate whether paid loot box design components have indeed been removed from the products -- and if not, whether related game companies operate with a required gambling license. Additionally, Xiao (2022) will assess Belgium’s overall paid loot box prevalence in comparison to other countries and carry out a field experiment to test whether players can easily circumvent the local regulation by transporting or downloading different versions of software.
 
The study will produce valuable evidence regarding the effectiveness of loot box regulation in general, and more specifically, the results should be of utmost interest to Belgian legal authorities. To ensure the transparency and validity of the chosen methods as well as upcoming interpretations, the registered report format allowed the research design to be reviewed in three rounds before data collection. Three experts, representing the fields of law and gaming, reviewed the Stage 1 manuscript twice and agreed upon the acceptance of all details. Finally, the recommender carried out a third iteration with further requested revisions, which was followed by in-principle acceptance.