Revisiting the Relationship Between Social Distance and Communication Preferences: A Replication and Reinterpretation of Amit et al. (2013, Experiment 2)
Amit et al. (2013) concluded that social distance can influence communication preferences: People prefer communicating with closer others using pictures (which are more concrete) and more distant others using words (which are more abstract). We conducted a high-powered (N = 988) preregistered replication of Amit et al. (2013, Experiment 2) and extended the design by manipulating the presence of a potential confound we detected when examining the original instructions. The original effect successfully replicated using the original instructions but did not replicate after the removal of the confound. Moreover, we demonstrate that the effect obtained with the original instructions likely relies on a different mechanism (comfort with sending personal pictures to close and distant contacts) than that posited in the original study (preference for concrete and abstract communication). These results cast doubt on the original interpretation and highlight the importance of transparent reporting standards in research.