UCSB Replication of UVA w4 ‘Redemption’ John Protzko, Jonathan Schooler The hypothesis under question is that seeing someone change their appearance after committing a crime makes people believe they are more ‘reformed’ than if they had not changed their appearance. All participants also answered an exploratory scale about how fixed morality was as a possible moderator of the appearance change effect; they were asked on a 1-6 Likert scale in random order: “A person’s moral character is something very basic about them and it can’t be changed much”; “Whether a person is responsible or sincere or not is deeply ingrained in their personality. It cannot be changed much”; and “There is not much that can be done to change a person’s moral traits (e.g. conscientiousness, uprightness, and honesty).” All potential participants were randomly assigned to take the study as part of the 1st batch of 750 participants or the 2nd batch of 750. Consistent with out pre-registered analysis plan (https://osf.io/qnrxb/), we analyzed the 1st 750 first, followed by the 2nd 750, then combined the data in the full 1500 participants. There was no difference in the magnitude of the treatment effect based on whether participants were randomly assigned to the 1st or 2nd 750 batch of participants (F (1, 1496) < 1, p > .73). 1st 750 The data was opened at 6:01am on December 31, 2019. It was analyzed on January 1, 2020 at 11:32am. Consistent with the original prediction, participants viewed the person as more remorseful when their appearance had changed (M = 2.854, SD = .873, n = 393) than if their appearance had not changed (M = 2.652, SD = 1.066, n = 356; t (687.673) = 2.81, p = .005, d = .208, 95%CI = .351 to .064). We found no interaction of changing appearance with participants theories of morality as a fixed construct (p > .98), nor was there any evidence of non-linearity (pWald > .89). 2nd 750 The data was opened at 6:49am on January 2, 2020; it was unblended at 7:06am on January 2, 2020. Similar to those in the 1st 750, people thought the offender was more remorseful if their appearance had changed (M = 2.867, SD = .967, n = 373) than if their appearance had not changed (M = 2.7, SD = 1.076, n = 378; t (742.538) = 2.236, p = .026, d = .163, 95% CI = .306 to .02). We likewise found no moderation of the appearance change effect based on how fixed participants believed morality to be (p > .55), nor was there any evidence of non-linearity (pWald > .44). Full 1500 As seen in the previous two halved of the data, we successfully replicated the effect oin the full 1500 participants. People believed the actor was more remorseful for past crimes if their appearance had changed (M = 2.86, SD = .92, n = 766) than if their appearance had not changed (M = 2.677, SD = 1.071, n = 734, t (1444.047) = 3.549, p < .001, d = .184, 95% CI = .285 to .082; see Figure 1). There was no moderation of holding a fixed mindset for morality on the effect of changing appearance on remorse (p > .71), nor was there any evidence of non-linearity (pWald > .54).