Common use of Dependent Variables Clause in Contracts

Dependent Variables. As a main dependent variable for the pilot, we measured participants’ subjective experience of financial scarcity during the Household Task. To do so, we used a measure that is based on appraisals of financial scarcity and consists of 11 items (for a list of all items, see online supplement on the OSF). Following research on the experiential correlates of financial scarcity, these items concern the appraisal of having too little financial resources (▇▇▇▇ et al., 2012), a lack of control over one’s finances (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al, 2022b), whether participants felt capable of dealing with their financial situation (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2022b), whether they were worried about their finances (▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ & ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2020), whether they felt positive or negative about their finances, and whether they were stressed (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ & ▇▇▇▇, 2014). All items were framed to assess participants’ experience during the Household Task specifically and were measured on a seven-point Likert-scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. The items showed very high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .96). Then, we asked participants about their actual financial situation to test whether the effectiveness of our manipulation was dependent upon participants’ real-life finances. Therefore, we used the Psychological Inventory of Financial Scarcity (PIFS; ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇ et al., 2022) to assess how much financial scarcity participants experienced concerning their real-life finances, regardless of the results of the Household Task. The PIFS measures appraisals of insufficient resources and lack of control, in addition to rumination, worry, and short-term focus. The PIFS consists of twelve items measured on a seven-point Likert-scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. In addition, as an objective measure of participants’ real-life finances, we included a single item to assess participants’ yearly net income (with the income brackets: less than £10k, £10k – £20k, […], £90k – £100k, £100k – £150k, more than £150k).6 We conducted a one-way between-participants ANOVA with Financial Resources (debts, control, savings) as predictor and experienced financial scarcity as dependent variable. As hypothesized, Financial Resources had an effect on experienced financial scarcity, F(2, 147) = 133.34, p < .001, η² = .65. Planned contrasts revealed that participants in the debts condition experienced more financial scarcity (n = 49, M = 6.17, SD = 0.96) than those in the control condition (n = 51, M = 3.43, SD = 1.22), t(147) = 6 We also included several items that asked participants for detailed feedback on the Household Task. Those items were not intended for hypothesis testing are and thus not reported here. In addition, we also measured participants’ experience of control over their finances and over their life in general, which were included for a different project (for a full list, see open materials on the OSF).