Too special to be duped: Need for uniqueness motivates conspiracy beliefs

Adding to the growing literature on the antecedents of conspiracy beliefs, this paper argues that a small part in motivating the endorsement of such seemingly irrational beliefs is the desire to stick out from the crowd, the need for uniqueness. Across three studies, we establish a modest but robust association between the self-attributed need for uniqueness and a general conspirational mindset (conspiracy mentality) as well as the endorsement of specific conspiracy beliefs. Following up on previous findings that people high in need for uniqueness resist majority and yield to minority influence, Study 3 experimentally shows that a fictitious conspiracy theory received more support by people…

Supplemental Material, VignetteValidatoin. - Resolving the Puzzle of Conspiracy Worldview and Political Activism: Belief in Secret Plots Decreases Normative but Increases Nonnormative Political Engagement

Supplemental Material, VignetteValidatoin. for Resolving the Puzzle of Conspiracy Worldview and Political Activism: Belief in Secret Plots Decreases Normative but Increases Nonnormative Political Engagement by Roland Imhoff, Lea Dieterle and Pia Lamberty in Social Psychological and Personality Science

The dynamic interactive pattern of assimilation and contrast: Accounting for standard extremity in comparative evaluations

Abstract Social judgments are often influenced by comparison to some standard in the environment, either moving the judgment closer (assimilating) to or away (contrasting) from this standard. Which direction this effect will take depends heavily on the relative standing of these standards on the judgment dimension compared to the target of the judgment. In previous research, items and comparison standards were often selected arbitrarily, ignoring or simplifying their influence substantially. The current work takes a fine-grained holistic curve fitting approach to measure response patterns across a wide range of standard extremities, showing that a narrower approach can pose limits to the ge…

Investigating the Links Between Cultural Values and Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Key Roles of Collectivism and Masculinity

Research suggests that belief in conspiracy theories (CT) stems from basic psychological mechanisms and is linked to other belief systems (e.g. religious beliefs). While previous research has extensively examined individual and contextual variables associated with CT beliefs, it has not yet investigated the role of culture. In the current research, we tested, based on a situated cultural cognition perspective, the extent to which culture predicts CT beliefs. Using Hofstede’s model of cultural values, three nation-level analyses of data from 25, 19 and 18 countries using different measures of CT beliefs (Study 1, N = 5,323; Study 2a, N = 12,255; Study 2b, N = 30,994) revealed positive associ…

Wie Verschwörungsglauben die Corona-Pandemiebekämpfung behindert

Zusammenfassung Verschwörungsnarrative über die Herkunft oder Harmlosigkeit des auslösenden Coronavirus tauchten in Zusammenhang mit der weltweiten COVID-19 Pandemie auf. Krisen befeuern solche Erzählungen, weil sie Bedürfnisse nach Erklärung, Sicherheit und Kontrolle befriedigen können. Problematisch ist, dass die Zustimmung zu solchen Ideen mit geringer Einhaltung infektionsreduzierender Maßnahmen (Hygiene, Abstand), sowie mit egozentrischer Selbstsorge korreliert.

Cognitive processes behind the shooter bias: Dissecting response bias, motor preparation and information accumulation

Abstract A rich body of research points to racial biases in so-called police officer dilemma tasks: participants are generally faster and less error-prone to “shoot” (vs. not “shoot”) Black (vs. White) targets. In three experimental (and two supplemental) studies (total N = 914), we aimed at examining the cognitive processes underlying these findings under fully standardized conditions. To be able to dissect a-priori decision bias, biased information processing and motor preparation, we rendered video sequences of virtual avatars that differed in nothing but the tone of their skin. Modeling the data via drift diffusion models revealed that the threat of a social group can be explicitly lear…

Supplemental Material, Corona_Conspiracy_Paper_ImhoffLamberty_suppl - A Bioweapon or a Hoax? The Link Between Distinct Conspiracy Beliefs About the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak and Pandemic Behavior

Supplemental Material, Corona_Conspiracy_Paper_ImhoffLamberty_suppl for A Bioweapon or a Hoax? The Link Between Distinct Conspiracy Beliefs About the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak and Pandemic Behavior by Roland Imhoff and Pia Lamberty in Social Psychological and Personality Science

Were we stressed or was it just me – and does it even matter? Efforts to disentangle individual and collective resilience within real and imagined stressors

Although resilience is a multi-level process, research largely focuses on the individual and little is known about how resilience may distinctly present at the group level. Even less is known about subjective conceptualizations of resilience at either level. Therefore, two studies sought to better understand how individuals conceptualize resilience both as an individual and as a group. Study 1 (N = 123) experimentally manipulated whether participants reported on either individual or group-based responses to real stressors and analysed their qualitative responses. For individual responses, subjective resilience featured active coping most prominently, whereas social support was the focus for…

Believing in Hidden Plots is Associated with Decreased Behavioral Trust: Conspiracy Belief as Greater Sensitivity to Social Threat or Insensitivity Towards its Absence?

Abstract Past research has demonstrated that conspiracy belief is linked to a low level of self-reported general trust. In four experimental online studies (total N = 1105) we examined whether this relationship translated into actual behavior. Specifically, since the decision to trust relies on the ability to detect potential social threat, we tested whether conspiracy believers are better at detecting actual threat, worse at detecting the absence of threat, or simply trust less, irrespective of any social cue. To this end, participants played multiple, independent rounds of the trust game, a behavioral measure for interpersonal trust. We manipulated social threat by presenting photographs …

Powerful Pharma and Its Marginalized Alternatives?

Abstract. Only little is known about the underpinning psychological processes that determine medical choices. Across four studies, we establish that conspiracy mentality predicts a preference for alternative over biomedical therapies. Study 1a (N = 392) and 1b (N = 204) provide correlational support, Study 2 (N = 185) experimentally tested the role of power: People who endorsed a conspiracy mentality perceived a drug more positively if its approval was supported by a powerless (vs. powerful) agent. Study 3 (N = 239) again showed a moderating effect of power and conspiracy mentality on drug evaluation by comparing analytic versus holistic approaches. These findings point to the consequences…

Incongruence Between Implicit Attachment Schemes and Unconscious Attachment Representations.

Assessments based on reaction time and language-based interviews postulate that unconscious attachment processes be measured. Nevertheless, a possible empirical equivalence of these two approaches has not yet been investigated. To fill this void, the Adult Attachment Interview and the Implicit Association Test were implemented with a group of patients with panic disorder (n = 157, mean age = 29, SD = 2.47) based on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, axis I and II disorders and a group of healthy individuals (n = 138). In total, the securely attached individuals showed significantly more positive attitudes toward their mother than the insecurely attached individuals. In the health…

A bioweapon or a hoax? The link between distinct conspiracy beliefs about the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and pandemic behavior

During the coronavirus disease pandemic rising in 2020, governments and nongovernmental organizations across the globe have taken great efforts to curb the infection rate by promoting or legally prescribing behavior that can reduce the spread of the virus. At the same time, this pandemic has given rise to speculations and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy worldviews have been connected to refusal to trust science, the biomedical model of disease, and legal means of political engagement in previous research. In three studies from the United States ( N = 220; N = 288) and the UK ( N = 298), we went beyond this focus on a general conspiracy worldview and tested the idea that different forms of …

Verschwörungsmentalität und Antisemitismus

Ausgehend von einer Begriffserlauterung unterschiedlicher Formen des Antisemitismus wird der Antisemitismus als ein zentrales Moment verschworungstheoretischer Weltbilder herausgestellt. Antisemitismus ist – wie viele Ressentiments gegenuber als machtig wahrgenommenen Gruppen und im Gegensatz zu Vorurteilen gegenuber vermeintlich machtlosen Gruppen – eng mit einer Weltsicht verknupft, die sich als Verschworungsmentalitat begreifen lasst. Negativ konnotierte Ereignisse werden dadurch erklart, dass eine kleine Gruppe diese durch geheime Absprachen und Aktionen gewollt hervorgerufen haben soll. Ein Uberblick uber die psychologische Forschung zu Antezedenzien und Konsequenzen von Verschworungsm…

Identification and location tasks rely on different mental processes: a diffusion model account of validity effects in spatial cueing paradigms with emotional stimuli.

Spatial cueing paradigms are popular tools to assess human attention to emotional stimuli, but different variants of these paradigms differ in what participants' primary task is. In one variant, participants indicate the location of the target (location task), whereas in the other they indicate the shape of the target (identification task). In the present paper we test the idea that although these two variants produce seemingly comparable cue validity effects on response times, they rest on different underlying processes. Across four studies (total N = 397; two in the supplement) using both variants and manipulating the motivational relevance of cue content, diffusion model analyses reveale…

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-spp-10.1177_19485506211016309 - A Chronic Lack of Perceived Low Personal Control Increases Women and Men’s Self-Reported Preference for High-Status Characteristics When Selecting Romantic Partners in Simulated Dating Situations

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-spp-10.1177_19485506211016309 for A Chronic Lack of Perceived Low Personal Control Increases Women and Men’s Self-Reported Preference for High-Status Characteristics When Selecting Romantic Partners in Simulated Dating Situations by Joris Lammers and Roland Imhoff in Social Psychological and Personality Science

In search of Experimental Evidence for Secondary Antisemitism


 
 
 In 1955, Adorno attributed antisemitic sentiments voiced by Germans to a paradox projection: The only latently experienced feelings of guilt were warded off by antisemitic defense mecha- nisms. Similar predictions of increases in antisemitic prejudice in response to increased Holo- caust salience follow from other theoretical apparatuses (e.g., social identity theory as well as just-world theory). Based on the – to the best of our knowledge – only experimental evidence for such an effect (published in Psychological Science in 2009), the present research reports a series of studies originally conducted to better understand the contribution of the different assumed mechan…

Combined Anchoring: Prosecution and defense claims as sequential anchors in the courtroom

Purpose When making judgements under uncertainty not only lay people but also professional judges often rely on heuristics like a numerical anchor (e.g., a numerical sentencing demand) to generate a numerical response. As the prosecution has the privilege to present its demand first, some scholars have speculated about an anchoring���based unfair disadvantage for the defence (who has the last albeit less effective word in court). Despite the plausibility of this reasoning, it is based on a hitherto untested assumption that the first of two sequential anchors exerts a greater influence on a later judgement (a primacy effect). We argue that it is also conceivable that the last word in court h…

Zeroing in on the Effect of the Schizophrenia Label on Stigmatizing Attitudes: A Large-scale Study.

The idea that psychiatric diagnoses are not mere descriptors of a symptomatology but create incrementally negative effects in patients has received considerable support in the literature. The flipside to this effect, that calling someone by a psychiatric diagnosis also has an effect on how this person is perceived by others, however, has been less well documented and remains disputed. An experimental study was conducted with a large sample (N = 2265) to ensure statistical power to detect even small effects of such adding a psychiatric diagnosis to a description of symptoms or not. Dependent variables were chosen in an exploratory manner and tests were corrected for alpha inflation. Results …

Making sense of the past to understand the present: Attributions for historical trauma predict contemporary social and political attitudes

Research indicates that the memory of collective trauma influences attitudes towards contemporary social and political issues. We suggest that the specific attributions for trauma that members of victim and perpetrator groups make provide a more nuanced understanding of this relationship. Thus, we constructed and validated a measure of attributions for the Holocaust. Then, we ran a preregistered study on representative samples in Germany ( N = 504) and Israel ( N = 469) to examine whether attributing the Holocaust to essentialist or contextual causes influences attitudes towards the immigration crisis and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Results indicated that, among Germans, attributing …

Explaining the Inexplicable: Differences in Attributions for the Holocaust in Germany, Israel, and Poland

Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust, but this cataclysmic event continues to reverberate in the present. In this research, we examine attributions about the causes of the Holocaust and the influence of such attributions on intergroup relations. Three representative surveys were conducted among Germans, Poles, and Israeli Jews to examine inter- and intragroup variations in attributions for the Holocaust and how these attributions influence intergroup attitudes. Results indicated that Germans made more external than internal attributions and were especially low in attributing an evil essence to their ancestors. Israelis and Poles mainly endorsed the obedient essence attribution and …

A Uniform Conspiracy Mindset or Differentiated Reactions to Specific Conspiracy Beliefs? Evidence From Latent Profile Analyses

Conspiracy theories arise for virtually any public event (e.g., pandemics, assassinations, disasters). In light of positively correlated endorsements of such beliefs, many have pointed to a more general mindset behind this. Others have argued against this notion of a consistent mindset. Applying Latent Profile Analyses, we examine the evidence for either uniform or differentiated response patterns to various items in five studies (reanalyzed datasets, total N = 7877). Overall, the results speak strongly to uniform reactions that could be summarized as a general mindset, but also revealed important qualifications. First, small parts of the samples show more differentiated patterns in relatio…

Resolving the Puzzle of Conspiracy Worldview and Political Activism: Belief in Secret Plots Decreases Normative but Increases Nonnormative Political Engagement

It is a hitherto open and debated question whether the belief in conspiracies increases or attenuates the willingness to engage in political action. In the present article, we tested the notion, whether (a) the relation between belief in conspiracies and general political engagement is curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) and (b) there may be opposing relations to normative versus nonnormative forms of political engagement. Two preregistered experiments ( N = 194, N = 402) support both propositions and show that the hypothetical adoption of a worldview that sees the world as governed by secret plots attenuates reported intentions to participate in normative, legal forms of political participati…

Groups' warmth is a personal matter: Understanding consensus on stereotype dimensions reconciles adversarial models of social evaluation

Abstract As proponents of two theories of social evaluation, we disagree whether people spontaneously differentiate societal groups' conservative-progressive beliefs (distinct claim of the agency-beliefs-communion or ABC model) or warmth/communion (distinct claim of the stereotype content model or SCM). Our adversarial collaboration provides one way to resolve this debate. Examining people from four continents who differentiated groups in their country (N = 2356), we found lower consensus on groups' warmth/communion compared to agency/~competence and beliefs (Studies 1–4). Consensus on groups' warmth/communion was lower because people differed in self-rated agency and beliefs, and they infe…

Supplemental Material, SPPS715070_suppl_mat - Studying the Cognitive Map of the U.S. States: Ideology and Prosperity Stereotypes Predict Interstate Prejudice

Supplemental Material, SPPS715070_suppl_mat for Studying the Cognitive Map of the U.S. States: Ideology and Prosperity Stereotypes Predict Interstate Prejudice by Alex Koch, Nicolas Kervyn, Matthieu Kervyn, and Roland Imhoff in Social Psychological and Personality Science

How to Teach about the Holocaust? Psychological Obstacles in Historical Education in Poland and Germany

Holocaust education in many countries faces severe obstacles, and the effects of such education are far from desirable. Research on German students found that education about the National Socialist period in Germany did not improve intergroup attitudes. Similarly, a study performed on Polish students in Warsaw showed that the extent of Holocaust education did not affect intergroup attitudes and led to more biased vision of the Holocaust. In both countries current Holocaust education seems to convey simplified entitative information about groups—such that all members of perpetrator group are presented as evil, and all bystanders as righteous. Based on psychological research on moral emotions…

Using Power as a Negative Cue: How Conspiracy Mentality Affects Epistemic Trust in Sources of Historical Knowledge.

Classical theories of attitude change point to the positive effect of source expertise on perceived source credibility persuasion, but there is an ongoing societal debate on the increase in anti-elitist sentiments and conspiracy theories regarding the allegedly untrustworthy power elite. In one correlational ( N = 275) and three experimental studies ( N = 195, N = 464, N = 225), we tested the novel idea that people who endorse a conspiratorial mind-set (conspiracy mentality) indeed exhibit markedly different reactions to cues of epistemic authoritativeness than those who do not: Whereas the perceived credibility of powerful sources decreased with the recipients' conspiracy mentality, that o…

(Pre)occupations: A data-driven model of jobs and its consequences for categorization and evaluation

Abstract We present a data-driven model of stereotypes about occupations (total N = 3919). Across two classification systems and national contexts (U.S.; Germany), we show remarkable convergence in the stereotype dimensions spontaneously employed to make sense of occupational groups (agency; progressiveness). Further studies show that these dimensions reflect presumed characteristics of job holders and not just describe their occupational role (Study 2), and that proximity of occupations on the emerging stereotype model increased superordinate categorization (Study 3) and contagious transfer of (positive and negative) valence from one occupation to another (Study 4). Together these studies …

Different facets of attitudes towards having children: The Procreation Attitude Scale (PrAttS)

The attitudes towards children are more complex than simple positive/negative distinctions. In the present study, we sought in two studies (N = 445) to provide a tool to explore different facets of attitudes towards babies and procreation by developing and validating a questionnaire regarding attitudes towards procreation. Study 1 was conducted to develop an English language scale tapping into adults’ attitudes toward having offspring. A larger number of statements were formulated that expressed an emotional value and motivational attitudes towards having babies. The sample consisted of n = 157 participants. Participants’ responses were subjected to a preliminary principal components analys…

Unite against: A common threat invokes spontaneous decategorization between social categories

Abstract A frequent rhetoric in the political arena calls members of larger groups like nations to lay aside all dividing differences and unite in face of a common threat. In the present research we sought to test whether such a unifying effect of external threat already manifests in such basic cognitive processes as automatic categorization even for such strong schisms as the ones between black and white Americans or Israeli Jews and Arabs. In Studies 1 & 2 (N = 183/144, USA), we established the decategorization effect in the context of black and white US Americans. In Study 3, we showed the effect again in a German lab for the gender category (N = 101). In Study 4 (N = 168, Israel), we tr…

Assimilation and Contrast in Spontaneous Comparisons: Heterogeneous Effects of Standard Extremity in Facial Evaluations

Judgments we make about others often depend on the standards we use as comparisons. Investigations into the outcomes of these comparisons and potential moderators have often been limited to single dimensions and preselected standards. The current work instead uses multiple evaluative facial dimensions and a multitude of comparisons. A series of 4 experiments ('N' = 665) attempted to detect contrast from extreme (Study 1) and assimilation to moderate standards in within (Studies 2 and 3) and between-subjects designs (Study 4). Results showed inconsistent evidence for both comparison effects and significant heterogeneity across the evaluative dimensions that were sampled. An additional 5 stud…

Rich false memories of autobiographical events can be reversed

False memories of autobiographical events can create enormous problems in forensic settings (e.g., false accusations). While multiple studies succeeded in inducing false memories in interview settings, we present research trying to reverse this effect (and thereby reduce the potential damage) by means of two ecologically valid strategies. We first successfully implanted false memories for two plausible autobiographical events (suggested by the students’ parents, alongside two true events). Over three repeated interviews, participants developed false memories (measured by state-of-the-art coding) of the suggested events under minimally suggestive conditions (27%) and even more so using massi…

Temperature Cues Bias the Memory of Trustworthiness of Faces

Humans rely on temperature cues to navigate and make sense of their social world. In two experiments we find that part of this process can be detected in the perception and memory of faces. We conducted two studies to find this effect through a method called “reverse correlation”, where we average a face over a large amount of trials. For participants who experienced physical warmth (vs. cold) at the initial confrontation with a face we found that the average of the trials displayed a psychologically warmer face (judged by independent raters). Excluding the possibility of a “carry-over” effect, in Study 2 we replicated the Study 1 effect, but only if physical warmth (vs. cold) preceded the …

Implicit Attachment Schemas and Therapy Outcome for Panic Disorder Treated with Manualized Confrontation Therapy.

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Different studies have shown that a patient’s attachment correlates with the psychotherapy outcome. However, these findings are based on the traditional interview and paper and pencil attachment methods. Latency-based methods like the Implicit Association Test (IAT) have not yet been investigated in clinical attachment research, specifically in therapy outcome research. <b><i>Objectives:</i></b> It can be hypothesized that patients with positive schemas of their mother and their partner may show a better psychotherapeutic outcome than those with less positive schemas of their mother/partner. <b><i>Method:&…

How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories

The ABC of society: Perceived similarity in agency/socioeconomic success and conservative-progressive beliefs increases intergroup cooperation

Abstract The dimensions that explain which societal groups cooperate more with which other groups remain unclear. We predicted that perceived similarity in agency/socioeconomic success and conservative-progressive beliefs increases cooperation across groups. Self-identified members (N = 583) of 30 society-representative U.S. groups (gays, Muslims, Blacks, upper class, women, Democrats, conservatives etc.) played an incentivized one-time continuous prisoner's dilemma game with one self-identified member of each of these groups. Players knew nothing of each other except one group membership. Consistent with the ABC (agency-beliefs-communion) model of spontaneous stereotypes, perceived self-gr…

Self-control failure increases a strategic preference for submission as means to avoid future failure

Abstract A plethora of theories on human motives proposes that people have a fundamental need for control and an intrinsic desire to avoid submission to others. The current paper investigated an important exception to this general claim. Five experiments show that self-control failure leads people to strategically prioritize more social submission. In Experiments 1 to 3, salience of self-control failure increased the preference for submission. The submission effect was replicated with two manipulations and four measures of submission. Additionally, Experiment 3 showed that the effect only occurs after self-control failure and not after failure in controlling others. Finally, in Experiments …

A Chronic Lack of Perceived Personal Control Increases Women and Men’s Self-Reported Preference for High-Status Characteristics When Selecting Romantic Partners in Simulated Dating Situations

The question what people desire in their romantic partner has hitherto been dominated by a focus on gender. It has been repeatedly found that, when asked what they find important in selecting a partner, women indicate that they find status more important compared to men. Across five studies, we move beyond gender and base ourselves on general theories of control deprivation to test the effect of differences in perceived personal control on stated partner preferences. We find that low-control people—both women and men—value characteristics associated with status more in romantic partners at the expense of other desirable traits (Study 1a and 1b). Furthermore, in simulated dating settings, l…

Studying the Cognitive Map of the US States: Ideology and Prosperity Stereotypes Predict Interstate Prejudice

What are the spontaneous stereotypes that U.S. citizens hold about the U.S. states? We complemented insights from theory-driven approaches to this question with insights from a novel data-driven approach. Based on pile sorting and spatial arrangement similarity ratings for the states, we computed two cognitive maps of the states. Based on ratings for the states on ∼20 candidate dimensions, we interpreted the dimensions that spanned the two maps (Studies 1 and 2). Consistent with the agency/socioeconomic success, conservative-progressive beliefs, and communion (ABC) model of spontaneous stereotypes, these dimensions that participants spontaneously used to rate the states’ similarity included…

Believe It or Not – No Support for an Effect of Providing Explanatory or Threat-Related Information on Conspiracy Theories’ Credibility

Past research suggests that certain content features of conspiracy theories may foster their credibility. In two experimental studies (N = 293), we examined whether conspiracy theories that explicitly offer a broad explanation for the respective phenomena and/or identify potential threat posed by conspirators are granted more credibility than conspiracy theories lacking such information. Furthermore, we tested whether people with a pronounced predisposition to believe in conspiracies are particularly susceptible to such information. To this end, participants judged the credibility of four conspiracy theories which varied in the provision of explanatory and threat-related information. Intere…

The lay historian explains intergroup behavior: Examining the role of identification and cognitive structuring in ethnocentric historical attributions

Both historians and lay people attempt to explain national histories. However, psychological research, to date, focused predominantly on the patterns of those explanations with regard to negative historical behaviors. In this article, we assess ethnocentrism of people’s explanations of both negative and positive historical behavior of ingroup members (own nation) and outgroup members (other nation). Two studies analyze how Poles explain crimes and heroic acts committed in the General Government, as well as diverse behaviors during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The studies confirm an ethnocentric pattern of explanation: positive historical actions of ingroup members we…

sj-pdf-1-gpi-10.1177_1368430221990105 ��� Supplemental material for Making sense of the past to understand the present: Attributions for historical trauma predict contemporary social and political attitudes

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-gpi-10.1177_1368430221990105 for Making sense of the past to understand the present: Attributions for historical trauma predict contemporary social and political attitudes by Gilad Hirschberger, Roland Imhoff, Dennis T. Kahn and Katja Hanke in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

Increased accessibility of semantic concepts after (more or less) subtle activation of related concepts: support for the basic tenet of priming research

Increasingly remote concepts and behaviors have been primed, which have come under increasing criticism. In this present experiment, we take a step back and try to strengthen the roots of priming research. In this experiment, we systematically varied the activation or priming of a concept in six experiments (

Editorial: Opening up to openness

How Orthogonal Are the Big Two of Social Perception? On the Curvilinear Relation Between Agency and Communion.

Humans make sense of their social environment by forming impressions of others that allow predicting others’ actions. In this process of social perception, two types of information carry pivotal importance: other entities’ communion (i.e., warmth and trustworthiness) and agency (i.e., status and power). Although commonly thought of as orthogonal dimensions, we propose that these Big Two of social perception are curvilinearly related. Specifically, as we delineate from four different theoretical explanations, impressions of communion should peak at average agency, while entities too high or too low on agency should be perceived as low on communion. We show this pattern for social groups acr…

Identification and location tasks rely on different mental processes: a diffusion model account of validity effects in spatial cueing paradigms with emotional stimuli

Spatial cueing paradigms are popular tools to assess human attention to emotional stimuli, but different variants of these paradigms differ in what participants’ primary task is. In one variant, participants indicate the location of the target (location task), whereas in the other they indicate the shape of the target (identification task). In the present paper we test the idea that although these two variants produce seemingly comparable cue validity effects on response times, they rest on different underlying processes. Across four studies (total N = 397; two in the supplement) using both variants and manipulating the motivational relevance of cue content, diffusion model analyses reveale…