Shame and guilt are powerful negative emotions that are notable for their external vs. internal focus: while shame is generally experienced in response to public scrutiny, guilt arises from a self-directed, private evaluation. In a formative study, Smith et al. (2002) asked whether the level of public exposure influenced levels of shame and guilt arising from one's transgressions, and found that, compared to private situations, public exposure was more strongly associated with shame than with guilt. Since then, these findings have had significant implications for theories and applications of moral psychology.

 

In the current study, Zhang et al. (2023) directly replicated Smith et al. (2002) in a large online sample, revisiting two critical questions from Study 1: (a) whether public exposure affects the magnitude of shame and guilt over one’s misconduct, and (b) whether stronger moral belief increases guilt and shame over one’s misconduct. The results fail to confirm the original conclusions: both public exposure and manipulation of moral beliefs were found to influence shame and guilt, with no reliable evidence that shame was influenced more strongly than guilt. These findings thus constitute a non-replication and offer a challenge to theoretical models that hinge on the separability of shame and guilt as separate constructs.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewer's comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that was used to answer the research question was generated until after IPA. 

 

 

• Experimental Psychology
• F1000Research
• Meta-Psychology
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Swiss Psychology Open
   

 

1. Smith, R. H., Webster, J. M., Parrott, W. G., & Eyre, H. L. (2002). The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 138-159. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.83.1.138

 

2. Zhang, Y., Cheung, F. C., Wong, H.T., Yuen, L. Y., Sin, H. C., Chow, H. T. & Feldman, G. (2023). Revisiting the role of public exposure and moral beliefs on feelings of shame and guilt: Replication Registered Report of Smith et al. (2002)’s Study 1. Acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/jpx87

The Martyrdom Effect is a behavioral tendency in which individuals exhibit greater generosity when their acts of giving entail effort or self-sacrifice (Olivola & Shafir, 2013). Giving at a personal cost, in this mindset, is associated with ascribing and inferring more meaning and value to charitable giving or other forms of generosity than in instances where no particular pain or effort is required to enact prosocial behavior. Arguably, the Martyrdom Effect’s ability to boost prosocial behavior therefore departs from other theories of behavior change postulating that easy options to act prosocially could boost contributions (e.g., default effects in charitable giving, see Altmann et al., 2019; Goswami & Urminsky, 2016). Because they introduce complexity to the debate about encouraging prosocial behavior, three studies from Olivola and Shafir (2013) are now being addressed in this Registered Report by Cheng and Feldman (2024).

Combining these three studies in a high-powered within-subjects replication attempt, transparently communicating necessary deviations from the original design and carefully outlining the analysis strategy, the current study will offer insights into the robustness of prior findings on the role of effort and pain in determining donations.

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two reviewers and the recommender. 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. Altmann, S., Falk, A., Heidhues, P., Jayaraman, R., & Teirlinck, M. (2019). Defaults and Donations: Evidence from a Field Experiment. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 101, 808-826. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00774

 

2. Cheng, Y. T. & Feldman, G. (2024). Do pain and effort increase prosocial contributions?: Revisiting the Martyrdom Effect with a Replication and extensions Registered Report of Olivola and Shafir (2013). In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/aq89u

 

3. Goswami, I., & Urminsky, O. (2016). When should the Ask be a Nudge? The Effect of Default Amounts on Charitable Donations. Journal of Marketing Research, 53, 829-846. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.15.0001

 

4. Olivola, C. Y., & Shafir, E. (2013). The Martyrdom Effect: When Pain and Effort Increase Prosocial Contributions. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26, 91-105. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.767

Are attention and consciousness inherently intertwined or distinct aspects of cognition? One report (Jiang et al. 2006) presented clear results in evidence of the latter. In this earlier study, the authors used a continuous flash suppression (CFS) paradigm which presents a colorful pattern to the dominant eye and stimuli of interest to the non-dominant eye; the colorful pattern masks the relevant stimulus from awareness. On each trial, the authors presented a sexually stimulating image and a scrambled image on different sides of a computer screen during CFS. They found that, even though participants were not consciously aware of the images, intact images that matched participants' sexual orientation could still capture attention.

 

Despite these seemingly clear results, the authors of the current Stage 1 manuscript pointed out that CFS studies are often not replicated, and the paper by Jiang et al. (2006) is no exception. Therefore, Chen et al. (2023) seek to replicate this study using a Bayesian (rather than NHST) analytic approach. This method will allow the authors to determine the strength of evidence for their hypotheses.

 

In this Stage 1 manuscript, Chen et al. present an introduction that motivates the replication, and a pilot study that replicated the procedure of Jiang et al. (2006) conducted with 21 participants. This led to a well-motivated statistical sampling plan and some small design changes for the main experiment, such as adding a staircasing procedure to remove potential performance ceiling effects, and using less extreme wording for stimulus attractiveness ratings. A clear study design template is presented, detailing the different hypotheses that will be tested, and what different outcomes would indicate.

 

The Stage 1 submission was evaluated by the recommender and two expert reviewers. Following revisions, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria 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:

 

 

1. Jiang, Y., Costello, P., Fang, F., Huang, M., & He, S. (2006). A gender-and sexual orientation-dependent spatial attentional effect of invisible images. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 17048-17052. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605678103

 

2. Chen, Y.-J., Scott, R.B., & Dienes, Z. (2023). Is conscious perception necessary to direct attention? A replication of Jiang et al. (2006). In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/b2ncp

Experimental research demonstrates that executing or inhibiting motor responses (or approaching / avoiding) towards a stimulus can alter the valuation of the stimulus (Yang et al., 2022). There are competing theories as to the proposed mechanisms of value change, such as increased response conflict or prediction errors (Houben & Aulbach, 2023). However, research has mostly examined response execution/inhibition and approach/avoidance in isolation and the few studies that have examined these together have focused on stimulus evaluation as an outcome.
 
In the present study, Chen et al. (2024) will use a novel version of a combined go/no-go / approach avoidance paradigm to test the effects on choice of consumable candy. In this task, participants are randomly assigned to make a response framed as a go / no-go action or an approach / avoidance action to control a shopping cart (Chen & Van Dessel, 2024). Following this they will complete a food choice task in which participants make a series of binary choices for different candies. Their performance on this task will lead to the receipt of real-world candy. The authors aim to test whether the same responses will lead to different effects on food choice, depending on how the response was interpreted (e.g. participants in the approach/avoidance instruction group will select Approach items more often than those in the go/no-go instruction group). The study is well powered to detect the proposed effect size of interest, and data will be analysed using Bayesian mixed-effect models.
 
This study will shed light onto theoretical predictions of action interpretation on stimulus value and choice, which may improve the efficacy of behaviour change tools such as approach bias training in future.  
 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on detailed responses to the recommender and 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/bn5xa (under temporary private embargo)

 

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. Chen, Z. and Van Dessel, P. (2024). Action interpretation determines the effects of go/no-go and approach/avoidance actions on stimulus evaluation. Open Mind, 8, 898-923.  https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00151

 

2. Chen, Z., Van Dessel, P., and Figner, B. (2024). Examining the role of action interpretation in changes in choice induced by go/no-go and approach/avoidance responses. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/bn5xa
 
3. Houben, K. and Aulbach, M. (2023). Is there a difference between stopping and avoiding? A review of the mechanisms underlying Go/No-Go and Approach-Avoidance training for food choice. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 49, 101245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101245
 
4. Yang, Y., Qi, L., Morys, F., Wu, Q. and Chen, H. (2022). Food-Specific Inhibition Training for Food Devaluation: A Meta-Analysis. Nutrients, 14, 1363. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14071363
 

When does the perceived wastefulness of different actions affect people's choices? In an influential set of studies examining different conceptions of wastefulness (overspending, underutilization, and sunk costs), Arkes (1996) found a systematic aversion to wastefulness in decision making, even when choosing to avoid wastefulness has no economic value or works against personal interest. While these findings have been influential in basic and applied research, there have been no attempts to directly replicate the results. Moreover, the original study had several methodological limitations, including the use of relatively small samples and critical gaps in statistical reporting and analyses.

 

In the current study, Zhu and Feldman (2024) conducted a high-powered replication of Arkes (1996) using an online sample of participants (N=659). The authors incorporated several extentions to improve the methodological rigor relative to the original article, including comprehension checks, manipulation checks, a within-subjects design, and a novel quantitative analysis of participants' self-reported motivations for their choices. The authors successfully replicated the effect of perceived wastefulness on two of the three scenarios used in the original article, but participants' self-reported reasons for their choices only provided partial support for the role of perceived wastefulness in decisions, with behavioral consistency and maximizing economic value also playing a role. The original effect was not observed in a third scenario, with a failed manipulation check that may indicate changes in the perceptions of wastefulness in the domain (tax preparation). Overall, the results provide some support for the role of wastefulness aversion in decision making, while also showing that perceived wastefulness might be outweighted by other considerations depending on how people interpret or reason about a situation.

 

The Stage 2 manuscript was evaluated over one round of in-depth review by the recommender and two expert reviewers. Following revision, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/r7tsw
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that was used to answer the research question was generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

 

1. Arkes, H. R. (1996). The psychology of waste. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 9,
213-224. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0771(199609)9:3%3C213::AID-BDM230%3E3.0.CO;2-1

 

2. Zhu, Z. and Feldman, G. (2024). Revisiting the Psychology of Waste: Replication and extensions Registered Report of Arkes (1996) [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/2jnc8