Rollwage, Häusser & Schulz-Hardt; Does holding decision-makers accountable make them less loss averse? A three-study replication attempt

Vieider [(2009). The effect of accountability on loss aversion. Acta Psychologica, 132(1), 96–101.] reported that this irrational tendency to avoid losses can be reduced by holding people accountable. The present study initially aimed to clarify whether this effect is driven by either process or outcome accountability. However, as we did not find any effects of either process or outcome accountability on loss aversion in two experiments, our focus shifted towards a direct replication attempt. Our third experiment used materials, procedures, and manipulations that closely matched those of the original study, and almost doubled its sample size. Despite these efforts, we still did not replicate Vieider's findings, with a Bayesian test providing substantial evidence in favor of the null hypothesis of no difference between experimental conditions.