Call for Proposals

Background

Experimental designs embedded in probability samples of U.S. adults are a powerful tool to assess causal effects that are generalizable to the national population. The Survey Experiments for the Scientific Study of Religion (SESSR) project team is requesting proposals from social scientists—including but not limited to sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, economists, communication scholars, and management scholars—to field survey-based experiments for free that would address important methodological or theoretical questions in the scientific study of religion using a probability sample of U.S. adults through NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel.

What Type of Experiments Might Be Fielded through SESSR?

Although by no means an exhaustive list, we expect SESSR-supported projects will include vignette experiments, priming experiments, question wording/response category experiments, and question ordering experiments. However, we also anticipate that some supported projects will introduce designs that go beyond these types of experiments.  

What Topics Might SESSR Experiments Explore?

All supported projects must relate to religion, broadly defined. Beyond that, we are looking for projects that either:

1. Have potential to produce meaningful and practical insights into issues such as—but not limited to—the role of religion in influencing individuals’ evaluations and decision-making, the role of religion in shaping perceptions and attitudes, the role of religion in civic life or public affairs, or similar big questions. For example, studies might consider how manipulating targets’ religion shapes individuals’ trust of, hostility towards, or other orientations towards outgroups, or how altering the salience of religion in a stimulus influences individuals’ perceptions or judgements. To be clear, however, SESSR projects are not limited to these specific questions.

2. Or, have the potential to improve our ability to address such questions by improving the measures or methods utilized in the scientific study of religion. For example, studies might consider how the nature of survey questions themselves shape our conclusions about religion in the United States.

Technical Specifications

Projects must fit within the technical and budgetary guidelines of the SESSR project and the NORC AmeriSpeak Panel. 

• All surveys will be fielded using the AmeriSpeak Panel. Depending on the needs of the experiment, some projects may be fielded using the AmeriSpeak Omnibus—a biweekly survey of 1,000 panelists, some may be grouped together with other SESSR projects into a standalone survey, and some may be fielded as their own standalone survey. The maximum number of cases that SESSR can support is 3,000. See more in the Frequently Asked Questions page.

• Vignettes, images, and videos are allowed, although they will count towards the number of items and cost of a project. The maximum number of items SESSR can support is 40. See more in the Frequently Asked Questions page.

• All supported projects will receive panel variables representing respondents’ age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, household income, religious identity, religious service attendance, born again identity, and Jewish cultural identification. If necessary, additional profile variables could be requested depending on the available budget.

Data Exclusivity and Open Science

The SESSR project aims to balance the professional needs of researchers with the goal of supporting open science. Given this, all supported projects will have exclusive use of their data for a period of 12 months after receipt. At the end of that period, the SESSR project team will archive the data and supporting materials at The Association of Religion Data Archives for public use. All funded experiments will be expected to follow best practices for open science. A Data Management Plan will be required as a part of the application detailing commitments to preregister studies, post a post-survey update, and share all metadata, syntax, additional data, and preprints of manuscripts.