The concept of a “true self” – the deepest and most genuine part of a person’s personality – is fundamental to many aspects of psychology, with influences that extend deep into society and culture. For decades, research in psychology has consistently found that people see their true selves as positive and virtuous. But people also positively regard (and indeed overestimate) many other characteristics related to the self, such as their abilities and achievements, prompting the question of whether there is anything special about the “true self” as a psychological concept. In an influential study, Newman et al. (2014) found that people were more likely to attribute morally good than morally bad changes in the behaviour of other people to their true selves. Crucially, they also found that our tendency to view the true self positively is shaped by our own moral values – in essence, what we regard as morally or politically good, we see in the true selves of others. Newman et al’s findings suggest that the tendency for us to regard our true self in a positive light stems from the specific nature of true self as a concept. 

 

In the current study, Lee and Feldman (2022) propose to replicate two key studies from Newman et al. (2014) in a large online sample. In particular, they will ask whether true-self attributions are higher for changes in behaviour that are morally positive compared to morally negative or neutral, and, further, how true-self attributions are aligned with personal moral/political views. The authors also propose exploring the relationship between true-self attributions and perceived social norms.

 

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/v2tpf

 

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. Newman, G. E., Bloom, P., & Knobe, J. (2014). Value judgments and the true self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 203–216. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213508791

 

2. Lee, S. C. & Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting the link between true-self and morality: Replication and extension of Newman, Bloom, and Knobe (2014) Studies 1 and 2, in principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/v2tpf

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

A considerable body of research in behavioural economics has established the existence of ambiguity avoidance: the tendency for people, when given a choice between two options, to choose the option for which there is greater certainty about the probabilities of certain outcomes occurring. In a seminal study, Curley, Yates, and Abrams (1986) explored potential psychological explanations of ambiguity avoidance, contrasting five hypotheses: hostile nature (the anticipation that more ambiguous options are biased against oneself), other-evaluation (the anticipation that one’s decision will be evaluated by others), self-evaluation (the anticipation that one's decision will be self-evaluated in the future), forced-choice (in which the less ambiguous option is selected only when all other considerations are equal), and a more general uncertainty avoidance associated with risk aversion. The results favoured other-evaluation as the most promising explanation, with implications in the following decades for research in social psychology, judgment and decision making, behavioural economics, consumer behaviour, and cognitive psychology.

 

In the current study, Yiu and Feldman (2022) plan to revisit the psychological basis of ambiguity avoidance in a large online sample through a replication of key studies from Curley et al. (1986), including extensions to increase methodological rigour and to explore the relationship between ambiguity avoidance and hostility bias, anticipated future regret, and post-choice social judgment from others, as well as trait measures of risk tolerance and ambiguity tolerance.

 

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).

 

 

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. Curley, S. P., Yates, J. F. & Abrams, R. A. (1986). Psychological sources of ambiguity avoidance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 38, 230-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(86)90018-X

  

2. Yiu, S. Y. & Feldman, G. (2022). Revisiting the psychological sources of ambiguity avoidance: 
Replication and extensions of Curley, Yates, and Abrams (1986), in principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/wb3hc

According to the sensory recruitment framework, the visual cortex is at least in part responsible for maintaining information about elementary visual features in visual short term memory. Could an early visual area, constantly taking in new information, really be responsible for holding information for up to a second? But conversely, could higher order regions, such as frontal regions, really hold subtle sensory distinctions? It must be done somewhere. Yet the existing evidence is conflicting. Phylactou et al. seek to address this question by applying transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt early visual areas at intervals up to a second after stimulus presentation to determine the effect on visual short term memory performance. In this way they will causally influence the sensory cortex at relevant times while tightening up on possible confounds in earlier research.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review by three expert reviewers. 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. 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. Phylactou, P., Shimi, A. & Konstantinou, N. (2022). Causal evidence for the role of the sensory visual cortex in visual short-term memory maintenance, in principle acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/empdt

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