Pre-registration assignment

Pre-registration Assignment Form

Study Information

Title     

Does your environment shape who you are? A study based on personal values and beliefs. 

Description

Migration may take place in an effort to pursue new prospects or to avoid confrontation. Adapting to a foreign nation (acculturation) is a dynamic phase in which heritage culture integrates with popular culture. Many studies have shown variables such as age, gender and level of education, religiosity and background can affect the process of acculturation, but very few have had access to the effects acculturation has on perceived gender roles and whether this stems from a real difference across generations. This study examines the perceptions and attitudes across a variety of migrant groups in the United Kingdom, especially Mediterranean, Arab and Northern African countries. All these areas have been called "honour cultures," i.e. places where "honour" and becoming an upright individual in the presence of others is a core cultural aim. 300 participants area asked to complete a questionnaire In this research, we are interested in whether the value of honour for one's life may change when people settle in new countries where honour may be less important (e.g. the United Kingdom) and where changes in honour may be related to changes in other beliefs and attitudes of everyday life. In particular, the goal is to examine whether the endorsement of masculine and feminine honour will change as a result of acculturation, and whether these changes will be followed by simultaneous changes in the various indicators of gender equality, such as gender equality, the appropriateness of cross-gender friendships, or the promotion of xenophobia.

Hypotheses/ Research Question

The 1st generation of honour cultures immigrants will show higher levels of honour than the 2nd generation of immigrants. Due to prolonged exposure to the host country (UK), there will be a decrease in the number of honoured immigrants in the 2nd generation. In addition, men and women of these two generations will differ in their recognition of honour due to perceived gender roles that change with acculturation. Immigrants who show larger drops in their honour will be expected to show more appreciation for cross-gender friendships, more equitable gender roles, and more enthusiasm for the feminist cause.

 

Participants

Our analysis is typically targeted at the recruitment of two major classes 1st generation immigrants to the UK, and second generation immigrants to the UK). Participants are listed as coming from a community of honour, and the countries selected for this analysis are Mediterranean, African and Asian countries (i.e Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Oman). Participants can be acquired through two separate channels: the online study engagement system for students at the University of Kent and the Prolific Industry Online Recruiting Site. In RPS, they will earn a total of 2 credits for their participation. Data collection in the RPS is expected to continue until the end of the year. In the event that we are not able to completely recruit our target sample of 300 participants through RPS by that point, we will then complete the data collection through Prolific. Prolific subjects are paid in proportion to the time of the study and will earn £2.50 for their participation in the questionnaire.

Procedure

At the beginning of the questionnaire, participants are presented with an information sheet accompanied by comments that they have ticked to give their permission. Participants are told by the questionnaire that the research examines people's perspectives on social problems, including their perceptions and encounters with a broad variety of social classes.

Participants are also instructed to establish a unique identifier in order to keep the data confidential, but also to allow the data to be located if the person wants to withdraw from the sample. The instructions given to build a unique identifier are as follows (e.g., 12345678). The questionnaire finishes by thanking the participants for their involvement and telling them that their data has been collected.

The questionnaire will take 20-25 minutes. It consists of 122 brief answers; participants answer questions about their own cultural values and views, experiences, expectations and behaviours of everyday life. The questionnaire elements are calculated using the Likert scale to quantify the perceptions and opinions of the participants.

Questionnaire Measures

Participants will first read a project information sheet that will describe the intent and estimated length of the study, as well as the rights of the participants, and that participating is voluntary and risk-free. The informed consent sheet would ask participants to give their consent to four separate points of consent. By checking the box next to each consent point, participants will show that they intend to participate, recognise the details given on the information sheet, and participate on a voluntary basis.

Gender roles. 'Egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles' (Knud & Larsen,1988; 17 items) can be used as a potential predictor (DV) test 'change of honour endorsement by acculturation’. This scale assesses the stereotypical perceptions of both men and women and how they perceive gender roles in household, social and job environments ('Women who cry have a bad character'). Participants score their compliance with the scale statements (from 0= Strongly Disagree to 6= Strongly Agree)

Cross-Gender friendships. The scale "Attitudes towards cross-gender friendships (2 items; self-created):" We created 2 items to test attitudes towards cross-gender close friendships: "Men and women should only have close friends of their own sex" and There is no problem with a man and a woman being close friends." Participants score their compliance with the scale statements from 0= Strongly disagree to 6= Strongly Agree. We would determine whether these items have an accurate scale of attitudes towards cross-gender relations, and then theoretically use this scale as a predictor (DV) of honour transition by acculturation.

Child rearing. Gender-based Attitudes towards Child-Rearing (GATCR; Hoffman & Kloska, 1995; 7 items): This scale measures peoples’ attitudes towards child rearing in today’s society, and if their views differ for the two gender in terms of education (“Education is more important for sons than for daughters”), household (“It’s okay for children to help around the house, but I would not ask a son to dust or set the table”) and societal settings (“ It is as important to steer a daughter toward a good job as it is with a son.”).  Participants rate their agreement with the statements on a scale from 0 = Strongly Disagree to 6 = Strongly Agree. We will use this scale as a potential indicator (DV) of change in honor endorsement through acculturation. 

Feminism Scale. The Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale - Short Scale (LFAIS; Woodbrown, 2015; 9 items): This scale measures liberal feminist attitudes in regards to women and society. The scale taps into the domains of gender role attitudes (“Women have been treated unfairly on the basis of their gender through most of human history”), and feminist ideology (“Women should have the same opportunities as a man”). We excluded one item from the original 10 item scale (“Women can best overcome discrimination by doing the best that they can at their jobs, not by wasting time with political activity”) since in many of the groups under study many women were likely not in employment. Participants rate their agreement with the statements on a scale from 0 = Strongly Disagree to 6 = Strongly Agree. We will use this scale as a potential indicator (DV) of change in honor endorsement through acculturation. 

The Honor Attribution Scale (HAS; Mosquera et. al, 2011; 24 items): This scale assesses individual honor endorsement in participants. Participants are presented with a series of honor attributes (e.g. Honesty, Loyalty to one’s partner) that may be seen desirable in men, women, or for individuals in general. Participants will fill out this scale twice, once rating the extent that they perceive these attributes as desirable for men, and once rating the extent that they perceive these attributes as desirable for women. The desirability of each attribute will be rated on a scale from 1 = Not desirable at all to 5 = Extremely desirable. We will use this scale as our main assessment of people’s endorsement of honor as a personal value in their lives. 

Vancouver Index of Acculturation (VIA; Paulhus; 2013; 16 items): This scale measures individuals' orientations towards one’s heritage as well as host culture, i.e. the extent to which individuals participate in practices of both their host and heritage culture (e.g. “I often participate in my heritage cultural traditions”), and the importance that these practices have to them (e.g. “It is important for me to maintain or develop British cultural practices.”). Participants will be first asked which is their heritage culture, and will then be asked to rate their agreement with the following statement with that culture in mind. Participants rate their agreement with the statements on a scale from 1 = Disagree to 9 = Agree. We will use this scale as a control variable, indicating the extent to which an individual has acculturated to British culture and/or is maintaining their own heritage culture. 

Well-being (Andrews and Withey, 1976): We will assess  overall well-being in participation with a single item: “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?” Participants will rate the item on a scale of 0 =Not at all to 10 = Completely satisfied. We will use this scale as an exploratory variable, examining whether individuals showing higher wellbeing may tend to acculturate more to the host culture, to maintain their heritage culture, or both. 

Relationship Status: In this section, participants will be asked general questions about their relationship status (single, married, cohabiting) as well as on their family status (number and age of children, cohabiting with children). We will use this information as a contextual variable, examining whether people who are in a relationship or not, and who have children or not, may answer questions about gender systematically different or not.  

 Demographical Information (11 items): Finally, participants will provide information about themselves including their sex, age, country of birth, length of stay in the UK, where their parents were born, the languages they speak, ethnic background, religiosity, and perceived social status in the country they live in. 

Analysis Plan

Analysis design

[Your analysis plan here. 250-500 word suggested limit]

1. Describe as well as you are able to prepare the data for analysis and any exclusion criteria.For example, you may have a ten-item scale of extraversion that you will average into a measure. You may be acquiring physiological data that your supervisor will help you turn into four indexes of autonomic bodily arousal. As an exclusion criterion, you might exclude participants who answer to a check item that they have failed to understand the vignette they were supposed to read.

2. Statistical model will be used to test each hypothesis?

3. Include- type of model (e.g.- t-test, ANOVA, correlation, multiple regression, chi-square test, etc)

4. Explain what will be included as predictors, outcomes, or covariates.

5. Please specify any interactions or follow-up analyses you anticipate running.

6. If you plan on using any controls/manipulation checks you could mention that here.

8. This is perhaps the most important and most complicated question within the preregistration. As with all of the other questions, the key is to provide a specific recipe for analyzing the collected data. Ask yourself: is enough detail provided that someone else could run the same analysis again the same way?

1. T-test

· One tailed t-test

· between 1st generation and 2nd generation 

· Power Analyses: For a medium effect, with alpha = 0.05 and power of 0.8, we need 278 participants (139 in each generation group).

· One tailed t-tests

2. Correlation

· honor endorsement and years spent 

· 2nd gen 

· For a within group correlation with medium effect, alpha = 0.05 and power of 0.8, we need 64 participants in a group.

3. Repeated t-test

· linear regression

· between generations (males + females) 

· Honor attribution scale 

4. Correlation/Regression 

· honor endorsement & years spent 

· Both- males and females 

· For a within group repeated t testwith medium effect, alpha = 0.05 and power of 0.8, we need 71 participants in a group.

To investigate whether each aspect honor values predicts acculturation outcomes in immigrants of 2 generations

Ethical Considerations

Ethical design

[Your ethical design here. 150-500 word suggested limit]

Participants will give their informed consent at the beginning of the study, before the questionnaire starts. An information page explaining elements of the study, such as the purpose of the research, what will happen during and after the study, and any possible risks or inconveniences will be included in the initial stage of the online questionnaire. In addition, information on how their involvement is voluntary will be provided. If they were to face any problems before or after the study has taken place, the participant is informed of how they can contact the researchers or a superior. The participant would have received enough details about the study from this information to decide whether they want to continue or withdraw their involvement.

The participants would be provided a general description to avoid biasing responses however not in grave detail as this can cause biases where a participant gives a specific response because they believe that the researcher is looking for this. Once they have been informed of the details of the study, consent from participants will be ensured, as the participant will have to check a box next to declarations of consent and ensure that they have understood the information provided, thus ensuring that the participant gives their informed consent.

The research protocol reduced the effects on the participants. Potential consequences such as offending, humiliating or disturbing the participant have been minimised by only using research questions that are not aimed at a participant with certain views and values, as well as by not using offensive language throughout.

The protocol outlines that it will take approximately 20 minutes for the questionnaire to be completed online, which leaves out the effect of extreme fatigue. Since the procedure does not require any invasive measurement methods, neither does the questionnaire cause possible physical or psychological damage, therefore, it can be deduced that any stress that may arise may not be different from the stress that participants encounter in their daily lives. 

The research does not re-trigger past traumas because the questions do not enable the participant to remember past experiences or distressing memories in order to address the questions, as the questions are intended to test the impact of acculturation and interaction on perceptions and attitudes of daily life.

If any problem occurs during the study, the participant will be told that they have the right to withdraw from the study immediately and that they may contact them about their issues, such as the researchers, the research supervisor or the ethics committee. In addition, if the participants have questions after the study is done, the same contact details will be provided and advised on how to withdraw from the study if they wish to do so.

Protocols to maintain confidentiality in this study are in place to protect the participants and store data safely, following ethical guidelines. Only digital types of data will be obtained by the research (Prolific, Qualtrics datasheet, SPSS datasheet). After receiving informed consent, a unique identification code consisting of a combination of numbers (random 8 digits) and a prolific ID will be given by the participant, enabling researchers to classify the data of the participant without using personal information, thereby allowing confidentiality to remain intact. There will be no details in the final year project that may contribute to the potential detection of a single person and as we would only report and analyse aggregate information, so it is not possible to identify specific sets of data, maintaining confidentiality.

The procedure for the researchers to submit their specific participant code by making the statements needed to create the code if a participant has asked to withdraw from the study. The researchers will then mark the data of the participant from the protected data file and will begin to permanently remove all the data from all secure data files for this participant. The data obtained by 'Qualtrics', will be stored on a single password-protected account accessible only by the researchers and research supervisors to ensure confidentiality. The data is then exported for review into an SPSS file. This file will contain only the unique code of the participant given when the questionnaire has been completed and no personal information will be retained. In order to guarantee the confidentiality and protection of the collected data, it will be stored in a storage that is backed up by the university and only accessible to the approved staff to minimise the risk of data loss or interfering with the data. 

As the study would use 'Qualtrics' to collect data, this program's security is known to be highly secure and its framework is designed for confidentiality since access is heavily limited, so it can be inferred that confidentiality is acceptable. It will be moved to all protected storage spaces after the data is gathered to ensure the data is not lost or tampered with.

There will be no details in the final year project that may contribute to the potential detection of a single person and their results as the data will be gathered and general patterns will be published, so it is not possible to identify specific sets of data, maintaining confidentiality.

In conclusion, as a consequence of the research protocol and materials, possible ethical concerns about consent, confidentiality and the impact on participants have been carefully considered and discussed. To mitigate any negative effects on participants and to ensure that the data of a participant is kept confidential and safe, guidelines have been placed in place. In order to support the research sample, but more importantly to protect the researcher, additional guidelines were placed in place to deal with any problem that might arise.