Replication of Study 2 by Silverman et al. (2024, PNAS)
Introduction
For my replication project, I have decided to replicate Study 2 of Silverman et al. (2024) in PNAS. Silverman et al (2024, Study 2) examined how believing in social mobility may cause parents from higher socioeconomic status to favor their own children in distributing resources, known as “opportunity hoarding”. My current research program examines how institutional norms, policies, and practices can negatively affect students from marginalized social groups in education. With my advisors, Dr. Greg Walton and Dr. Jordan Starck, I am currently examining the downstream effects of these processes on students of colors’ experience, sense of belonging, and motivation, particularly in response to obviously racist or threatening events, policies, or institutions. However, I am also interested in understanding how the beliefs and behaviors of majority group (i.e., wealthy, white) members produce such inequitable and threatening social environments in the first place. Ultimately, I aim to understand when and how these dynamics interact to produce inequality over time, making use of both causal chain (i.e., when the DV of one experiment becomes a manipulated IV in the next experiment; see Spencer et al., 2005) and longitudinal field experiments. As I have already begun to investigate one aspect of this process, the Silverman et al. (2024) study provides a paradigm I could later use to understand how the beliefs and behaviors of majority group members create and sustain inequitable policies. Conducting this replication project will give me experience with this paradigm that I can later apply to my own research.
Silverman et al. (2024) Study 2 provided causal evidence that parents in the U.S. from higher socioeconomic status backgrounds are motivated to hoard opportunities for their own children. In an experimental study, parents in the U.S. (N = 1,009) were recruited from Prolific and randomly assigned to an upward mobility or downward mobility condition. Both conditions depicted a brief video highlighting economic mobility. In the upward mobility condition the video stated that many children could increase their position in society. However, in the downward mobility condition, the video described the opposite, that many children would decrease their position in society. The results indicate that high-SES, but not low-SES, parents in the upward mobility condition were less likely to support redistributive policies. An exploratory moderated mediation analysis found that the relationship between condition and opportunity hoarding behavior was mediated by beliefs in socioeconomic mobility among high-SES, but not low-SES, parents.
After watching the brief videos, participants completed manipulation checks items, a scale of beliefs in socioeconomic mobility (e.g., “There are a lot of opportunities for people to move up the social ladder”; 5 items on a 7-point Likert scale; Day & Fiske, 2017), support for redistributive policies (e.g., “charging rich parents higher college tuition to increase subsidies and fellowships for lower-income students”) and opportunity hoarding behaviors (e.g., “permit [child name] to misrepresent something about their identity (e.g., belonging to a socially disadvantaged group) to qualify for additional resources or initiatives”). Socioeconomic status was operationalized in several ways and then combined to form a standardized composite. These items included annual household income, education level, and the MacArthur Ladder scale (Adler et al., 2000), which measures subjective perception of one’s socioeconomic position. Participants were categorized as high-SES if they were one standard deviation above the composite and low-SES if they were one standard deviation below the composite. They also included additional demographic measures such as gender, race/ethnicity, political orientation, and demographics about their children (i.e., age, gender, etc.).
I will gain several skills by conducting the replication project. First, I will gain experience with a new paradigm that could be applicable for my research. I will also gain experience coding videos into surveys in Qualtrics and running a moderated mediation analysis, neither of which I have previously done in my own research. Lastly, I will gain further experience conducting research with specific populations, as I will only recruit parents from the United States. All the measures, materials, videos, and manipulations are available online, which should help with conducting the replication. However, given financial constraints, the large sample required (N = 1,009) might have to be reduced for purposes of this assignment.
Link to Github repository Link (backup in case broken): https://github.com/kevinrk97/kennedy2025
Link to original paper (in repository) Link (backup in case broken): https://github.com/kevinrk97/kennedy2025/tree/main/original_paper
Methods
Power Analysis
Original effect size, power analysis for samples to achieve 80%, 90%, 95% power to detect that effect size. Considerations of feasibility for selecting planned sample size.
Planned Sample
Planned sample size and/or termination rule, sampling frame, known demographics if any, preselection rules if any.
Materials
All materials - can quote directly from original article - just put the text in quotations and note that this was followed precisely. Or, quote directly and just point out exceptions to what was described in the original article.
Procedure
Can quote directly from original article - just put the text in quotations and note that this was followed precisely. Or, quote directly and just point out exceptions to what was described in the original article.
Analysis Plan
Can also quote directly, though it is less often spelled out effectively for an analysis strategy section. The key is to report an analysis strategy that is as close to the original - data cleaning rules, data exclusion rules, covariates, etc. - as possible.
Clarify key analysis of interest here You can also pre-specify additional analyses you plan to do.
Differences from Original Study
Explicitly describe known differences in sample, setting, procedure, and analysis plan from original study. The goal, of course, is to minimize those differences, but differences will inevitably occur. Also, note whether such differences are anticipated to make a difference based on claims in the original article or subsequent published research on the conditions for obtaining the effect.
Methods Addendum (Post Data Collection)
You can comment this section out prior to final report with data collection.
Actual Sample
Sample size, demographics, data exclusions based on rules spelled out in analysis plan
Differences from pre-data collection methods plan
Any differences from what was described as the original plan, or “none”.
Results
Data preparation
Data preparation following the analysis plan.
Confirmatory analysis
The analyses as specified in the analysis plan.
Side-by-side graph with original graph is ideal here
Exploratory analyses
Any follow-up analyses desired (not required).
Discussion
Summary of Replication Attempt
Open the discussion section with a paragraph summarizing the primary result from the confirmatory analysis and the assessment of whether it replicated, partially replicated, or failed to replicate the original result.
Commentary
Add open-ended commentary (if any) reflecting (a) insights from follow-up exploratory analysis, (b) assessment of the meaning of the replication (or not) - e.g., for a failure to replicate, are the differences between original and present study ones that definitely, plausibly, or are unlikely to have been moderators of the result, and (c) discussion of any objections or challenges raised by the current and original authors about the replication attempt. None of these need to be long.
References
Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women. Health Psychology, 19(6), 586. 2
Day, M. V., & Fiske, S. T. (2017). Movin’on up? How perceptions of social mobility affect our willingness to defend the system. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(3), 267-274.
Silverman, D. M., Hernandez, I. A., Schneider, M., Kalil, A., Ryan, R., & Destin, M. (2025). Economic mobility and parents’ opportunity hoarding. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(37), e2407230121.
Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., & Fong, G. T. (2005). Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6), 845–851.