title: “Replication of The Illusion of Moral Decline by Mastroianni & Gilbert (2023, DOI” author: “Fisher Anderson” date: “r format(Sys.time(), '%B %d, %Y')” format: html: toc: true toc_depth: 3

## Introduction

My particular research interests reside in the field of Symbolic Systems, which pertains mainly to the brain and it’s ever growing similarities with computers. Specifically, I have molded this path towards Human Centered AI (HAI), with frequent detours into the realm of human consciousness. In trying to find an adequate study to replicate, none were made known to me that both fit my research relevence and real world feasibility. This is because most work on consciousness has been published as a report or commentary, and the few research articles that exist require large scale machinery like fMRI. This article by Mastroianni can be tied to my field of study by examining how the mind perceives morality, a hot topic in HAI, and is also practically feasibly by using Amazon Mechanical Turk, directly replicating the study.

This study consists of 5 major segments, all of which require survey data to make conclusions about what people think about morality. The first three segments show that people will claim that morality has declined when explicitly asked to assess moral change in a variety of time spans. The fourth segment shows that, in reality, people do not think morality is on a decline when asked to assess their own contemporaries. Lastly, the fifth segment shows that the appearance of moral decline is also not present for people when asked about their own personal worlds (i.e. friends and family).

In order to conduct this experiment, I will need to find a similar database of people (all of which are from the US) to survey about their own morality and whether or not it has declined around them in varying amounts of time. However, segments 1 and 4 utilize 3rd party databases for opinions about morals, such as Pew Research Center and Gallup. Some challenges will be: finding the right population of people to survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk or Prolific, replicating their survey questions that are not directly mentioned in the text, and organizing the results into similarly depictive graphs as presented in the paper.

https://github.com/psych251/mastroianni2023

https://github.com/psych251/mastroianni2023/blob/main/original_paper/moral_decline_paper.pdf

## 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.

```{r include=F}

### Data Preparation

#### Load Relevant Libraries and Functions

#### Import data

#### Data exclusion / filtering

#### Prepare data for analysis - create columns etc.

```

### 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.