It seems like this would be relatively easy to test with an online experiment using a student-only sample.
This would have the advantage that we could test the effect of the different names without experimenting with an actual EA group by changing its name. On the other hand, this might miss any factors particular to that specific group of students (if there are any such factors), though it would be possible with the larger sample size that this would allow to examine the effects of different characteristics of the students or the university they attend. This would also allow us to test multiple additional names at the same time.
Hey David_Moss :) It would indeed be very interesting to do this and get some insights into how different names are perceived by students! I think this would be especially useful if we could identify which names are most appealing to ‘proto-EAs’. Otherwise I’m not sure how useful this type of study in itself is to actually find out which name result in most HEAs, as—at least in our experience—a broadly appealing name may not necessarily translate into finding more EAs. For example, when we asked friends for feedback in the brainstorm phase of our name change, ‘PISE’ received more positive reactions than ‘EA’. Yet most people who stayed with our group (and didn’t drop out of fellowships/committees or otherwise become inactive) actually prefered EA or were neutral. A potential explanation for this is that the additional people that a more popular name attracts are actually often people who wouldn’t be interested in EA in the long run (and that casting our net wide doesn’t always translate into more success further down the line). I’m not sure if an online experiment would pick up on who (are likely to) actually become EAs, but if we could relate name preferences to proto-EA characteristics we may be able to capture that.
Yes, it would be easy and natural to include measures of EA inclination when “examin[ing] the effects of different characteristics of the students”, which I mentioned.
One other thing I’d flag is that, although I think it’s very plausible that there is a cross-over interaction effect (such that people who are predisposed to be positively inclined to EA prefer the “Effective Altruism” name and people who are not so predisposed prefer the “Positive Impact” name), it doesn’t sound like the data which you mention doesn’t necessary suggest that.
i.e. (although I may be mistaken) it broadly sounds like you asked people beforehand (many of whom liked PISE) and you later asked a different set of people who already had at least some exposure to effective altruism (who preferred EAE). But I would expect people who’ve been exposed to effective altruism (even a bit) to become more inclined to prefer the name with “effective altruism” in it. So what we’d want to do is expose a set of people (with no exposure to EA) to the names and observe differences in those who are more or less positively pre-disposed to EA (or even track them to see whether they, in fact, go on to engage with EA long term).
Thanks for running this experiment!
It seems like this would be relatively easy to test with an online experiment using a student-only sample.
This would have the advantage that we could test the effect of the different names without experimenting with an actual EA group by changing its name. On the other hand, this might miss any factors particular to that specific group of students (if there are any such factors), though it would be possible with the larger sample size that this would allow to examine the effects of different characteristics of the students or the university they attend. This would also allow us to test multiple additional names at the same time.
Hey David_Moss :) It would indeed be very interesting to do this and get some insights into how different names are perceived by students! I think this would be especially useful if we could identify which names are most appealing to ‘proto-EAs’. Otherwise I’m not sure how useful this type of study in itself is to actually find out which name result in most HEAs, as—at least in our experience—a broadly appealing name may not necessarily translate into finding more EAs. For example, when we asked friends for feedback in the brainstorm phase of our name change, ‘PISE’ received more positive reactions than ‘EA’. Yet most people who stayed with our group (and didn’t drop out of fellowships/committees or otherwise become inactive) actually prefered EA or were neutral. A potential explanation for this is that the additional people that a more popular name attracts are actually often people who wouldn’t be interested in EA in the long run (and that casting our net wide doesn’t always translate into more success further down the line). I’m not sure if an online experiment would pick up on who (are likely to) actually become EAs, but if we could relate name preferences to proto-EA characteristics we may be able to capture that.
Yes, it would be easy and natural to include measures of EA inclination when “examin[ing] the effects of different characteristics of the students”, which I mentioned.
Ah right I was wondering whether that’s what you meant or not :)
Makes sense!
One other thing I’d flag is that, although I think it’s very plausible that there is a cross-over interaction effect (such that people who are predisposed to be positively inclined to EA prefer the “Effective Altruism” name and people who are not so predisposed prefer the “Positive Impact” name), it doesn’t sound like the data which you mention doesn’t necessary suggest that.
i.e. (although I may be mistaken) it broadly sounds like you asked people beforehand (many of whom liked PISE) and you later asked a different set of people who already had at least some exposure to effective altruism (who preferred EAE). But I would expect people who’ve been exposed to effective altruism (even a bit) to become more inclined to prefer the name with “effective altruism” in it. So what we’d want to do is expose a set of people (with no exposure to EA) to the names and observe differences in those who are more or less positively pre-disposed to EA (or even track them to see whether they, in fact, go on to engage with EA long term).
I sent you a PM with some questions :)