Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
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The application of supervised machine learning to predict group- and individual-level lapse risk in smokers attempting to stop with a popular smartphone app: An exploratory study
No full textIn this exploratory study, we will use supervised machine learning algorithms (e.g. Random Forest, Support Vector Machine) to predict group- and individual-level lapse risk in smokers attempting to stop with a popular smartphone app
Violent Threat and Incumbent Support
No full textThis study uses a survey experiment to examine whether violent threat triggers favorable orientations toward the incumbent party. Subjects are drawn from the adult population of India, and threat emanates either from China or from a terrorist attack
Investigating predictions of the iCodes model in the context of the coach’s eye
No full textThe coach’s eye is defined as a “coach’s process of assessing and evaluating players, resulting in a decision to select or deselect the athlete” (Lath et al., under review) in talent selections. However, knowledge about underlying mechanisms of the coach’s eye is limited. In this study these underlying mechanisms are conceptualized using a model from decision-making research as the (de-)selection of certain athletes corresponds to a decision for one option out of many different options. The integrated coherence-based decision and search (iCodes) model states unique predictions for the information search process of decision making. The aim of this study is to investigate whether underlying mechanisms of the coach’s eye can be explained by the iCodes model. Therefore, the two core predictions of the iCodes model will be tested in the context of the coach’s eye (Lath et al, under review)
Task cue influences on priming: Manipulations of task set dominance. Words “rund” / “belebt” and symbols “§§§§§” / “$” as task cues.
No full textParticipants will perform two trial types in randomized, intermixed order: induction task trials and task-cue only trials. In induction task trials, they have to perform a semantic or perceptual decision on pictures according to a task cue (indicating the semantic or the perceptual decision). In task-cue only trials the task cues are presented without following picture, i.e. no decision has to be made. In both trial types, a masked primed lexical decision task (LDT) follows. Previous work showed that task sets (i.e. semantic or perceptual task set) are also activated if no task has to performed, i.e. they are also activated in task-cue only trials. However, the effect of task cues on masked semantic priming depended on task set dominance, i.e. the relation between elements of task cues and the decision categories. Task sets are considered as strong, when task cues and decision categories are congruent. Task sets are considered as weak due to an incongruence between task cues and decision categories. Previous research indicated that strong task sets are readily inhibited after task cue presentation, whereas weak task sets showed more persistent activation. The focus of this research therefore rests on properties of the task cues in task-cue only trials and their influence on task set activation and inhibition. We manipulate congruence of task cues and decision categories by manipulating the relation of task cue and decision category. In the strong condition, the decision categories themselves are used as task cues (“rund”, engl. round; indicates the perceptual decision; “belebt”, engl. living, indicates the semantic decision). In the weak condition, the arbitrary symbols “§§§§§” and “$” are used as task cues, counter-balanced across participants for the perceptual and semantic decision. As a consequence, there is no relation between task cues and the related decision category in the weak condition
Qualitative study on housework routines – Survey 1
No full textOur study explores how people identify, negotiate, and keep track of their housework routines. This is the preregistration for survey 1
Praise for incurring costs on others’ behalf
No full textIn this experiment we aim to test the hypothesis that praiseworthiness is influenced by the costs that one person incurs to help another. We will show participants cases in a grid world where someone picked up a coffee for their coworker on their way to work. We predict that how much a coworker is praised for picking up a coffee depends on the additional cost that the coworker incurred compared to going straight to the office
Exploring the nature and dynamics of self-unforgiveness: An Underexplored Construct
No full textThe study will aim to explore the nature, correlates and dynamics of self-unforgiveness, hitherto little known aspect of human behaviours
Investigating the influence of facemask wearing on trust and trustworthiness
No full textThe Covid-19 pandemic has stimulated a lot of research in behavioural science. The possibility that wearing a facemask or other form of coverings may alter the way we interact with each other seems to have so far been mostly overlooked. Therefore, the attention of this study is on the potential effects of surgical facemask wearing. We propose to investigate whether people show more or less trust towards a facemask wearer, and whether wearers elicit more or less trustworthiness. Trust and trustworthiness will be measured by means of a variant of the trust game, first used by Berg et al. (1995). In that game, two players are each given an endowment (e.g., £10). One of them (‘trustor’) moves first and has the opportunity to send any integer amount between £0 and £10 to a second mover (‘trustee’). Whatever is not sent is kept by the trustor. The trustee receives 3 times the amount sent by the trustor and can then decide how much (if any) of this amount she would like to send back to the trustor. The greater the amount the trustor sends to the trustee, the more he is said to trust her. If the trustee returns no less than what the trustor sent, she is said to be trustworthy.
Reference: Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., and McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History. Games and Economic Behavior 10(1): 122–142
The effects of social chemosignals on the psychophysiological correlates of motivational dysregulation in social anxiety and depression
No full textPrevious literature posited that human behavior is driven by the motivation to approach rewards and the motivation to avoid threats. The so-called approach and avoidance motivational systems are independent and separate, but they interact in orienting responses to emotional stimuli and in influencing ongoing affect (Lang et al., 1998). More recently, this model has been applied to the domain of social motivation (Gable, 2006). According to this model, approach social goals (e.g., “to make friends”) and avoidance social goals (e.g., “to not be lonely”) represent dispositional constructs that stimulate appetitive and aversive behaviour, respectively (Gable & Gosnell, 2013).
Depression and social anxiety are mental disorders both characterized by impaired social functioning. Social anxiety is characterized by intense fear and avoidance of social situations (Hofmann & Bogels, 2006), and it has been associated with increased activity of the defensive motivational system (Davidson et al., 2000; Nusslock et al., 2015). Conversely, depressive disorders are characterized by anhedonia, apathy, and psychomotor retardation, which seem to be associated with hypoactivation of the appetitive motivational system (Henriques & Davidson, 1990; Stewart et al., 2010), resulting in a reduced propensity for approach-related action tendencies. Notably, humans transfer socially-relevant information (such as age, health status, and personality traits) and emotional states via body odors (also referred to as chemosignals) (Parma et al., 2017; Pause, 2012, 2017). Within the emotional states, individuals exposed to body odors report a partial reproduction of the affective, perceptual, and behavioral state of the sender, in a phenomenon called as “emotional contagion” (Semin, 2007). For example, anxiety chemosignals induce in the receivers an increase in withdrawal behaviors (measured by the startle reflex, Pause et al., 2009), a reduction in the perceptual acuity to happy facial expressions (Pause et al., 2004; Zernecke et al., 2011) and an augmented acuity to negative facial expressions (Zhou & Chen, 2009). On the other side, happiness body odors can induce in the receivers a happier facial expression than neutral body odors and a global processing style, which is typical under positive mood conditions (de Groot et al., 2015). However, despite the ability of body odors to convey emotional information, their role as a context in the processing of emotional stimuli is still widely unknown.
Given the role of odors as powerful emotional stimuli and their role in affecting the subjective perceptual experiences and the psychophysiological processing of emotional stimuli, this project aims to investigate whether happiness and fear body odors could modulate subjective and psychophysiological processing of neutral facial expression in individuals with symptoms of depression and in individuals with symptoms of social anxiety