10.7910/DVN/0YHJRGSheagley, GeoffreyGeoffreySheagley0000-0002-1743-6201University of GeorgiaClifford, ScottScottClifford0000-0002-9401-7481University of HoustonHarvard Dataverse2023Social SciencesSurvey experimentPrimingModeratorSheagley, GeoffreyGeoffreySheagleyUniversity of GeorgiaSheagley, GeoffreyGeoffreySheagleyUniversity of Georgia2022-11-092023-06-162365741653306349146212933568714283496896282118668109165638551323955579280425244707785730592907949678921991125035721208724523011134763449334513263618821642612117564568545549554542232955851976235920783544506123141892237180513767318461013772395271167719521389777205193236527952740676154232127322542271722492143270526851712765type/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxtype/x-r-syntaxapplication/pdfapplication/pdftext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/htmltext/htmltext/plaintext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuesapplication/x-stata-syntaxapplication/x-stata-syntaxapplication/x-stata-syntaxapplication/x-stata-syntaxapplication/x-stata-syntaxapplication/x-stata-syntaxapplication/x-stata-syntaxtext/htmltext/tab-separated-valuestext/htmltext/htmltext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/tab-separated-valuestext/htmltext/tab-separated-valuestext/htmltext/plainapplication/octet-streamtext/tab-separated-valuestext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltype/x-r-syntaxtext/tab-separated-valuestext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltext/htmltext/tab-separated-valuestext/html1.0As survey experiments have become more common in political science, so too have efforts to identify who is most responsive to a treatment. By necessity, moderation experiments frequently rely on observed, rather than manipulated moderators, such as partisan identity or racial attitudes. These designs have led to an ongoing debate about where to measure moderators – immediately prior to the treatment, after the treatment, or in a prior wave of a panel survey. Each design choice has its downsides and detractors. Measuring a moderator after the treatment opens the possibility of posttreatment bias. Measuring it prior to the experiment may create priming effects. And panel studies are costly and sometimes infeasible. We contribute to this debate by systematically studying whether measuring moderators prior to an experiment affects the results. Across six different experiments, each involving one of the most commonly used moderators, we find no evidence of priming effects. Additionally, we find no evidence that the distance between a moderator and an experiment within a survey affects the results. Our findings thus help resolve the debate, suggesting that the pretreatment measurement of a moderator often poses little threat to the inferences drawn from an experiment. We conclude with advice on designing well-powered moderation experiments.This dataset underwent an independent verification process that replicated the tables and figures in the primary article. For the supplementary materials, verification was performed solely for the successful execution of code. The verification process was carried out by the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. <br></br> The associated article has been awarded Open Materials and Open Data Badges. Learn more about the Open Practice Badges from the <a href="https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/home/" target="_blank">Center for Open Science</a>.<br></br> <img src="https://odum.unc.edu/files/2020/03/OpenData_PR-1.png" alt="Open Data Badge" height="77" width="80"> <img src="https://odum.unc.edu/files/2020/03/OpenMaterials_PR-1.png" alt="Open Materials Badge" height="77" width="80">