Decisions to give to charities are affected by numerous external and internal factors. Understanding the elements influencing donation decisions is of first-order importance for science and society. On the scientific side, understanding the determinants of charity-giving contributes to the knowledge of altruistic behaviors in the presence of collective problems such as poverty, climate change, or animal welfare. On the social side, pointing out which factors affect donations can help increase prosocial behaviors and might facilitate collective actions in the case of public goods.  

Previous work has identified multiple mechanisms affecting altruistic donations to charities (Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011). Importantly, Baron and Szymanska (2011) collected empirical evidence suggesting that people prefer (i) their donations to be directly used for projects rather than organizational costs, (ii) when charities have low past costs, (iii) to diversity their donations into several NGOs, (iv) to favor charities that deal with close peers like nationals, and (v) to give voluntarily rather than through taxes. 

Here, Chan and Feldman (2024) conducted a close replication of Studies 1 to 4 of Baron and Szymanska (2011) using a large sample of online participants (four studies, overall N=1,403). In their replication, the authors found supporting evidence for the phenomena reported in the original study. In particular, people were more likely to donate to charities with lower organizational and lower past costs, to diversify their donations, and to show ingroup/nationalist preferences with larger donations to NGOs helping local over foreign children. Chan and Feldman (2024) ran additional analyses that indicated validity concerns regarding the analysis and questions that resulted in finding a preference for voluntary donations over taxation. In their added extensions that went beyond the original study, they also found that donors preferred to donate to charities whose overhead costs are paid for by other donors and unexpected evidence that making donations anonymous increased rather than decreased contributions.

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/gmswz
 
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. Baron, J. and Szymanska, E. (2011). Heuristics and Biases in Charity. In D. M. Oppenheimer and C. Y. Olivola (Eds.), The Science of Giving: Experimental Approaches to the Study of Charity (pp. 215–235). Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203865972

 

2. Bekkers, R. and Wiepking, P. (2011). A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 924–973. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764010380927

 

3. Chan, M. and Feldman, G. (2024). Factors impacting effective altruism: Revisiting heuristics and biases in charity in a replication and extensions Registered Report of Baron and Szymanska (2011) [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 5 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/4etkp

Decision-making based on limited information is a common occurrence. Whether it is the possibility of a cheaper product elsewhere or the unknown qualifications of election candidates, people are regularly forced to make a decision under ignorance or uncertainty. In such situations, information about certain events is unavailable or too costly to acquire and people rely on subjective probability allocation to guide decision-making processes. This allocation seems to result in what is known as ignorance priors, i.e., decision-makers assigning equal probabilities to each possible outcome within a given set. How events are grouped or partitioned is often subjective and may influence probability judgments and subsequent decisions. In such cases, the way the choices within a choice set are presented may shape the perceived likelihood of different outcomes. Understanding the impact of partitioning on probability estimation is crucial for both psychological and economic theories of judgment and decision.

 

The question of evaluating probabilities under uncertainty has received much attention in the psychology and economics literature over the past decades given the wide range of possible applications. In the current work, Ding and Feldman (2024) seek to replicate one of the foundational works on the topic: Fox and Rottenstreich (2003). In the original work, the authors provided exploratory evidence indicating that the framing of a situation affects the way individuals perceive probabilities of possible outcomes. They showed that people assigned uniform probabilities to sets of events described in a problem, such that the way the events are described partly determines people’s partitioning of those events and evaluations of the probabilities of the possible outcomes. Additionally, this partitioned framing affected judgments both under conditions of ignorance (where individuals have no information and rely solely on uniform probability assignments) and uncertainty (where individuals have some information but still rely on heuristics influenced by partitioning). This suggests that priors resulting from the inference of available evidence are sometimes partly contaminated by partitioning bias, affecting both uninformed and partially informed decision-making processes. As a consequence, the partitioning of events into different subsets might lead to varying evaluations of a single situation, resulting in inconsistencies and poorly calibrated probability assessments.

 

Ding and Feldman (2024) aim to replicate Studies 1a, 1b, 3, and 4 from Fox and Rottenstreich (2003). Their close replication will rely on original data (US participants, Prolific, N=600, not collected yet) with a large statistical power (>95%). Their replication aims to examine whether the partitioned framing affects prior formation under ignorance (Studies 1a, 1b, and 4) and uncertainty (Study 3). In addition, the authors propose an extension examining estimations of alternative event(s) contrasting estimations of the probabilities of events happening versus of events not happening.

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two external reviewers and the recommender. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' and the recommender’s 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. Ding, K. & Feldman, G. (2024). Revisiting Partition Priming in judgment under uncertainty:
Replication and extension Registered Report of Fox and Rottenstreich (2003). In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/px6vb

 

2. Fox, C. R. & Rottenstreich, Y. (2003). Partition priming in judgment under uncertainty. Psychological Science, 14, 195-200. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.02431

Pro-social actions are often driven by emotional factors. For instance, emotions have been shown to play a decisive role in the way we judge the fairness of a situation (affect-as-information theory: e.g., Clore et al., 2001; Storbeck and Clore, 2008), and, thus, how we make decisions. Specific emotions like anger have also been shown to stimulate the motivation to fight injustice (Lerner et al., 2015). At the individual level, people might undertake altruistic actions as a way to relieve themselves from these negative emotions (what Cialdini (1991) calls ‘reflexive distress’) but also because these actions are expected by the social norms (‘normative distress’). Indeed, pro-social actions are usually taken in social contexts, and the perception of one’s behavior by third parties might hinder or facilitate the adoption of pro-social behaviors. Understanding the determinants of the perception of altruistic behaviors is thus a key research question to support pro-social actions in collective settings.

 

In the current study, Woo and Feldman (2024) aim to replicate the seminal work of Barasch et al. (2014), who showed that third parties hold more favorable views of agents undertaking pro-social actions when the latter are motivated by emotions. More precisely, the authors aim to replicate two studies of the original work by conducting a well-powered online experiment (US participants, Prolific, N=1,164). First, they will investigate whether donors who exhibit higher distress regarding the suffering of others are perceived as more moral and authentically concerned for others. Second, they will analyze whether individuals who expect material or reputational benefits from their altruistic deeds are perceived by third parties as less moral than those who act for emotional reasons. In addition to these two replication objectives, the authors propose extensions with pre-registered hypotheses that are inspired by Study 2 from the original work. They seek to investigate whether people are seen as more other-focused when they undertake a prosocial action (donation) and under different expected rewards (material, reputational, emotional benefits).

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two external reviewers and the recommender. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' and the recommender’s 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. Barasch, A., Levine, E. E., Berman, J. Z., & Small, D. A. (2014). Selfish or selfless? On the signal value of emotion in altruistic behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 393-413. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037207

 

2. Cialdini, R. B. (1991). Altruism or egoism? That is (still) the question. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 124-126. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1207/s15327965pli0202_3

 

3. Clore, G. L., Gasper, K., Garvin, E., & Forgas, J. P. (2001). Handbook of Affect and Social Cognition.

 

4. Lerner, J. S., Li, Y., Valdesolo, P., & Kassam, K. S. (2015). Emotion and decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 799-823. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043

 

5. Storbeck, J., & Clore, G. L. (2008). Affective arousal as information: How affective arousal influences judgments, learning, and memory. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1824-1843. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1751-9004.2008.00138.x

 

6. Woo, T. L. & Feldman, G. (2024). Revisiting the signal value of emotion in altruistic behavior: Replication and extensions Registered Report of Barasch et al. (2014) Studies 3 and 6. In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/d5bmp

Decisions to give to charities are affected by numerous external and internal factors. Understanding the elements that influence donation decisions is of first-order importance for science and society. On the scientific side, understanding the determinants of charity giving contributes to the knowledge of altruistic behaviors in the presence of collective problems such as poverty, climate change, or animal welfare. On the social side, pointing out which factors affect donations can help increase pro-social behaviors and might facilitate collective actions in the case of public goods. 

 

Previous work identified multiple mechanisms affecting altruistic donations to charities (Bekkers and Weeping, 2011). Importantly, Baron and Szymanska (2011) collected empirical evidence suggesting that people prefer (i) their donations to be directly used for projects rather than organizational costs, (ii) when charities have low past costs, (iii) to diversity their donations into several NGOs, (iv) to favor charities that deal with close peers like nationals, and (v) to give voluntarily rather than through taxes. 

 

In the current study, Chan and Feldman seek to replicate the results of Baron and Szymanska (2011). They propose a close replication of the original study using a large sample of online participants (1,400 participants). In addition to the five mechanisms identified by the original study, they will further explore whether public donation increases contributions and whether individuals are more likely to donate when the charities’ overhead costs are paid for by other donors. 

 

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/gmswz
 
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. Baron, J. & Szymanska, E. (2011). Heuristics and Biases in Charity. In D. M. Oppenheimer & C. Y. Olivola (Eds.), The Science of Giving: Experimental Approaches to the Study of Charity (pp. 215–235). Psychology Press. 

 

2. Bekkers, R. & Wiepking, P. (2011). A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 924–973.

 

3. Chan, M. & Feldman, G. (2023). Factors impacting effective altruism: Revisiting heuristics and biases in charity in a replication and extensions Registered Report of Baron and Szymanska (2011), in principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/gmswz

Trust is a fundamental element for the well-functioning of our society. By achieving large levels of trust, societies can reduce monitoring costs (e.g., contract supervision, conflict resolution) and increase investments in more profitable but socially riskier projects. Trust serves as a way to foster cooperation among individuals and can benefit the entire social group.

 

As a result, numerous researchers have sought to explore the biological foundations of trust. In particular, several research teams have tried to explore the role of oxytocin in modulating prosocial behaviors. However, previous research findings obtained mixed findings, and several methodological issues, such as low statistical power, have hindered the development of a definite view on the matter.

 

In the current study, Kroll et al. (2023) seek to replicate the seminal study of Kosfeld et al. (2005). Kosfeld and co-authors originally found that the intranasal administration of oxytocin can significantly increase trust among individuals. However, recent replication evidence shows no general effect of oxytocin on pro-social behaviors or suggests that the effect might be heterogeneous among social groups (Declerck et al., 2020). The objective of the current study of Kroll et al. (2023) is twofold. First, the authors propose to replicate the original study of Kosfeld et al. (2005) and to investigate whether the lack of replication can be due to an overall effect that is smaller than the original findings suggest. Second, the authors propose to replicate recent but exploratory results on the heterogeneous effect of oxytocin on pro-social choices. 

 

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 4. At least some of the data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question already exists AND is accessible in principle to the authors (e.g. residing in a public database or with a colleague) BUT the authors certify that they have not yet accessed any part of that data/evidence.

 

 

 

 

1. Declerck, C. H., Boone, C., Pauwels, L., Vogt, B., & Fehr, E. (2020). A registered replication study on oxytocin and trust. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(6), 646–655. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0878-x

 

2. Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435(7042), 673–676. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03701

 

3. Kroll, C. F., Schruers, K., Viechtbauer, W., Vingerhoets, C., Seidel, L., Riedl, A. & Hernaus, D. (2023). Oxytocin, individual differences, and trust game behavior: a registered large-scale replication, in principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/h5gdp

Probability and randomness are foundational statistical concepts used not only throughout the sciences, but also in our daily lives to guide our behavior and make sense of the world. Their importance and widespread use may suggest that they are easy concepts to understand, yet that seems not to be the case. A classic article by Tversky and Kahneman (1971) on the “belief in the law of small numbers” revealed that professional psychologists tended to incorrectly perceive a small sample that is randomly drawn from a population as representative of that population. This finding has been hugely influential, inspiring myriad subsequent studies into error and bias when reasoning about probability. 

 

In the current study, Hong and Feldman (2023) propose a conceptual replication and extension of Tversky and Kahneman (1971). The original article was shockingly sparse on details regarding the method, sample, and findings, and, to our knowledge, has never been replicated. These facts are especially concerning given the foundational status that the article holds in the field. Hong and Feldman (2023) have developed a conceptual replication project, using the same approach and targeting the same claims from Tversky and Kahneman (1971), but modifying the wording of the stimuli for clarity and appropriateness for lay respondents. Although Tversky and Kahneman (1971) relied on professional psychologists as participants, many of their claims were not restricted to that population, but rather were generalized to all people—which is also how the findings have been subsequently applied. Thus, the change from professional to lay responders is entirely appropriate and the study will be diagnostic of the original claims.

 

Finally, Hong and Feldman (2023) extend the target study by manipulating the sample size indicated in the stimuli. Tversky and Kahneman (1971) relied on a single sample size in each scenario, leaving open the question as to how sample size might impact respondents’ reasoning. Accordingly, Hong and Feldman (2023) vary the sample size across the scenarios to determine whether participants answer differently as the sample size increases. 

 

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review, the first round consisting of detailed comments from two reviewers and the second round consisting of a close read by the recommender. 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/fzbq7
 
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

 

 

1. Hong, C. K., & Feldman, G. (2023). Revisiting the “Belief in the law of small numbers”: Conceptual replication and extensions Registered Report of problems reviewed in Tversky and Kahneman (1971). In principle acceptance of Version 3 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/fzbq7

 

2. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1971). Belief in the law of small numbers. Psychological Bulletin, 76(2), 105–110. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0031322