Anthropomorphism is a widespread phenomenon in which people instil non-human entities or objects with human-like characteristics, such as motivations, intentions, and goals. Although common, the tendency to anthropomorphise varies between people, and a growing body of psychological research has examined the importance of various individual differences. One major theoretical account of anthropomorphism (Epley et al. 2007) suggests that sociality motivation – the drive to establish social relationships – is a key moderator of the phenomenon. In support of this account, some evidence suggests that people who experience greater loneliness (a proposed marker of sociality motivation) are more likely to anthropomorphise. In an influential series of studies, Epley et al. (2008) found that anthropomorphism and loneliness were positively correlated and that inducing participants experimentally to feel more lonely led to greater anthropomorphism. Later studies, however, produced more mixed results, particularly concerning the effectiveness of the experimental interventions.

 

In the current study, Elsherif et al. (2022) propose a partial replication of Epley et al. (2008), focusing on the correlational relationship between anthropomorphism and loneliness, with extensions to examine free will beliefs, anthropomorphism for supernatural beings (in addition to objects/gadgets), and the extent to which participants judged objects/gadgets to be controllable.

 

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/by89c

 

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. Epley, N., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2007). On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological Review, 114, 864–886. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.864 

 

2. Epley, N., Akalis, S., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2008). Creating social connection through inferential reproduction: Loneliness and perceived agency in gadgets, Gods, and greyhounds. Psychological Science, 19, 114–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02056.x 

 

3. Elsherif, M., Pomareda, C., Xiao, Q., Chu, H. Y., Tang, M. C., Wong, T. H., Wu, Y. &  Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting the positive association between loneliness and anthropomorphism with an extension to belief in free will: Replication and extensions of Epley et al. (2008), in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/by89c

When receiving a favour, we may feel grateful and/or indebted to those who have helped us. What factors determine how much gratitude and indebtedness people experience? In a seminal paper, Tsang (2006) found that people reported feeling more gratitude when the helper's intention was benevolent (e.g., helping others out of genuine concerns for other people) compared to when the helper's intention was perceived to be selfish (e.g., helping others for selfish reasons). In contrast, indebtedness was not influenced by perceived helper intention. This finding highlighted the different processes underlying gratitude and indebtedness, and also inspired later work on how these two emotions may have different downstream influences, for instance on interpersonal relationships.

So far, there has been no published direct replication of this seminal work by Tsang (2006). In the current study, Chan et al. (2024) propose to revisit the effects of helper intention on gratitude and indebtedness, by replicating and extending the original studies (Study 2 & 3) by Tsang (2006). Participants will be asked to either recall (Study 2) or read (Study 3) a scenario in which another person helped them with either benevolent or selfish intentions, and rate how much gratitude and indebtedness they would experience in such situations. The authors predict that in line with the original findings, gratitude will be more influenced by helper intention than indebtedness. To further extend the original findings, the authors will also assess people's perceived expectations for reciprocity, and their intention to reciprocate. These extensions will shed further light on how helper intention may influence beneficiaries’ experiences of gratitude and indebtedness, and their subsequent tendencies to reciprocate.

This Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review by three expert reviewers and the recommender. After the revisions, 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/uyfvq
 
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. Tsang, J.-A. (2006). The effects of helper intention on gratitude and indebtedness. Motivation and Emotion, 30, 199–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9031-z

2. Chan, C. F., Lim, H. C., Lau, F. Y., Ip, W., Lui, C. F. S., Tam, K. Y. Y., & Feldman, G. (2024). Revisiting the Effects of Helper Intention on Gratitude and Indebtedness: Replication and extensions Registered Report of Tsang (2006). In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/uyfvq

Stigmas are prejudices or discrimination against people based on qualities that vary from the norm, such as a physical or mental illness, disability, sexuality, race, or one of many other personal characteristics. The harm caused by stigmatisation has made understanding the causes and potential solutions a vital area of study in psychology and public health. One of the major focuses of ongoing research is understanding the factors that determine whether a particular characteristic becomes stigmatised, and if so how the stigma might be eliminated. Previous research has found that for disease-based stigmas, the contagiousness, course, and disruptiveness of a disease can be influential. Another key determinant is the perceived cause of the stigmatised condition or characteristic. In a landmark study, Weiner et al. (1988) reported that attributes based on physical health were more likely to be perceived as being uncontrollable, stable and irreversible, prompting feelings of sympathy without anger or judgment. On the other hand, attributes related to mental health and behaviour were more likely to be regarded as controllable and reversible, prompting lack of sympathy coupled with feelings of anger and negative judgement. In a second experiment, they also found that manipulating the perception of controllability can modify emotional responses and judgments – for some stigmas (but not others), providing participants with information that a particular characteristic was controllable vs. uncontrollable was found to increase or decrease negative attributions, respectively.

 

In the current study, Yeung and Feldman (2022) propose to replicate Experiment 2 from Weiner et al. (1988) in a large online sample. In particular, they plan to ask how the source of a stigma is related to perceived controllability and stability, emotional reactions, and willingness to help. They also propose a range of extensions, including the inclusion of additional stigmas that have become relevant since the original study was published over 30 years ago.

 

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/k957f

 

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. Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., & Magnusson, J. (1988). An attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 738–748. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.55.5.738

 

2. Yeung, K. Y. & Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting stigma attributions and reactions to stigma: Replication and extensions of Weiner et al. (1988), in principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/k957f

When offered a range of options and asked to make multiple selections, how do people choose? Over the last 30 years, a key finding to emerge from behavioural economics is that people distribute their choices more evenly than would be considered optimal – a phenomenon termed “diversification bias” or the “diversification heuristic” (Read & Loewenstein, 1995). For example, when filling a plate from a buffet, you might be inclined to choose a relatively even amount of everything on offer, even when you prefer some foods over others. Similarly, when allocating savings among different investment options, people are prone to spreading their money more evenly than would maximise utility.

 

In an influential study, Fox et al. (2005) found that diversification bias can be shaped by so-called “partition dependence” – the tendency to allocate resources differently across options depending on how they are subjectively grouped. Such groupings could be arbitrary; so, for example, to return to the buffet example, people might diversify across high-level categories such as cooked and uncooked, savoury and sweet, or surf and turf, and then diversify across the options within those categories. The nature of level of these subjective (and potentially arbitrary) categorisations can strongly influence the final allocation of resources. Diversification bias and partition dependence have important implications for basic theory in judgment and decision-making as well as applications in behavioral economics and finance.

 

In the current study, Li and Feldman (2022) propose to replicate Studies 1, 2 and 5 from Fox et al. (2002) in a large online sample. In particular, they plan to ask how partitioning influences the allocation of choices between options, and the extent to which partition dependence is reduced in people with greater relevant expertise. The authors also propose extending the original study to explore individual differences in the desire for choice diversity as predictors of partition dependence.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over one round 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/bx8vq

 

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:
 

• Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Experimental Psychology
• F1000Research
• Journal of Cognition
• Meta-Psychology
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Swiss Psychology Open

 
References

 

1. Read, D., & Loewenstein, G. (1995). Diversification bias: Explaining the discrepancy in variety seeking between combined and separated choices. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 1, 34-49. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-898X.1.1.34

 

2. Fox, C. R., Ratner, R. K., & Lieb, D. S. (2005). How subjective grouping of options influences choice and allocation: Diversification bias and the phenomenon of partition dependence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 538-551. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.134.4.538

  
3. Li, M. Y. & Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting diversification bias and partition dependence: 
Replication and extension of Fox, Ratner, and Lieb (2005) Studies 1, 2, and 5, in principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/bx8vq

The Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative Template has been created in 2022 to provide more structure and detail to preregistrations. The goal of the current study is to test if the PRP-QUANT template indeed provides greater restriction of the flexibility in a study for preregistered hypotheses than other existing templates. This question is important because one concern that has been raised about the practice of preregistration is that the quality of preregistrations is often low. Metascientific research has shown that preregistrations are often of low quality (Bakker et al., 2020), and hypothesis tests from preregistrations are still selectively reported (van den Akker, van Assen, Enting, et al., 2023). It is important to improve the quality of preregistrations, and if a better template can help, it is a cost-effective approach to improve quality if the wider adoption of the better template can be promoted. 

 

In the current study, Spitzer and Mueller (2024) will follow the procedure of a previous meta-scientific study by Heirene et al. (2021). 74 existing preregistrations with the PRP-QUANT template are available, and will be compared with an existing dataset coded by Bakker and colleagues (2020). The sample size is limited, but allows detecting some differences that would be considered large enough to matter, even though there might be smaller differences that would not be detectable based on the currently available sample size. Nevertheless, given that there is a need for improvement, even preliminary data might already be useful to provide tentative recommendations. Restrictiveness will be coded in 23 items, and adherence to or deviations from the preregistration are coded as well. As such deviations are common, the question whether this template reduced the likelihood of deviations is important. Two coders will code all studies. 

 

The study should provide a useful initial evaluation of the PRP-QUANT template, and has the potential to have practical implications if the PRP-QUANT template shows clear benefits. Both authors have declared COI's related to the PRP-QUANT template, making the Registered Report format a fitting approach to prevent confirmation bias from influencing the reported results. 

 

This Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review by two expert reviewers and the recommender. After the revisions, 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/vhezj
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some data/evidence that will be used to the answer the research question has been previously accessed by the authors (e.g. downloaded or otherwise received), but the authors certify that they have not yet observed ANY part of the data/evidence.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

 

1. van den Akker, O. R., van Assen, M. A. L. M., Bakker, M., Elsherif, M., Wong, T. K., & Wicherts, J. M. (2023). Preregistration in practice: A comparison of preregistered and non-preregistered studies in psychology. Behavior Research Methods. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-023-02277-0

 

2. Bakker, M., Veldkamp, C. L. S., Assen, M. A. L. M. van, Crompvoets, E. A. V., Ong, H. H., Nosek, B. A., Soderberg, C. K., Mellor, D., & Wicherts, J. M. (2020). Ensuring the quality and specificity of preregistrations. PLOS Biology, 18(12), e3000937. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000937

 

3. Spitzer, L. & Mueller, S. (2024). Stage 1 Registered Report: Restriction of researcher degrees of freedom through the Psychological Research Preregistration-Quantitative (PRP-QUANT) Template. In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/vhezj

 

4. Heirene, R., LaPlante, D., Louderback, E. R., Keen, B., Bakker, M., Serafimovska, A., & Gainsbury, S. M. (2021). Preregistration specificity & adherence: A review of preregistered gambling studies & cross-disciplinary comparison. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/nj4es