Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
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Discrimination attitudes in Denmark: A survey experiment
In this survey experiment (planned n≅1500), we will investigate the effectiveness of different information treatments in changing attitudes towards ethnic discrimination among ethnic Danes. We will use realistic treatments that have been deployed in the real world in order to prove or illustrate ethnic discriminiation in Denmark. We plan to randomly expose approximately 300 participants to each of four treatments, all related to discrimination on the Danish labor market. Another 300 participants serve as the control group.
Treatment 1 and 2 deploy what Iyengar (1990) has called “thematic frames”: abstract and impersonal background information. Treatment 3 and 4 use “episodic frames”, relating personal experiences of individuals. Further, treatment 1 and 3 provide manifest evidence of unfavorable differential treatment based on ethnicity. Treatment 2 and 4 focus on perceptions of unfavorable differential treatment, from the point of view of non-ethnic Danes. We expect the “evidenced” treatments to be stronger than the “perceived” treatments.
In a related pre-registration (Identity politics in Denmark: A survey experiment), we also investigate the effects of these treatments on a novel scale measuring “identitarianism”, or support for identity politics
The impact of disclosing embarrassing information – The Perspective of the Observer
The feeling embarrassment is quite ubiquitous in our lives. Embarrassment refers to “an aversive emotional state in
which one feels chagrin following deliberation on perceived negative appraisal by others or negative appraisal by
oneself for transgressions that occur either in public or in private contexts.” (Krishna et al. 2019, p. 495). As
embarrassment is a negative emotion people either try to avoid embarrassing situations or minimize it. One
strategy to cope with embarrassing situations is by using humor (Grace 2005; 2009). Similarly, people use humor to
manage the impression they leave on others. As Bitterly and Schweitzer (2019) have shown, the use of humor as an
impression management tool can have beneficial effects on the perception of warmth and competence when
disclosing negative information. Based on these findings, we assume that humor not only has a positive impact on
perceptions when disclosing negative information, but also when disclosing embarrassing information.
Furthermore, we know from other contexts that one's own experience and evaluation of a situation can differ
significantly from how we think others perceive the same situation. For this reason, it is important to consider the
difference between one's own perception and that of others. Further, research has shown that there are different
humor types, positive and negative humor types. We will focus on one positive (self-enhancing) and contrast this
with the use of a negative humor type (self-defeating). This is why, in this experiment; we take the perspective of
someone who observes the disclosure of an embarrassing information (observer) who in turn has to give
perceptions of how s/he perceives the discloser of the embarrassing information and the witness. In sum, to
investigate the beneficial effects of using humor in disclosing embarrassing information, we investigate the
perception of the observer form different perspectives: We investigate (a) how the observer perceives the discloser
and (b) how the observer perceives the witness
External store availability: Partial cues III
A project to investigate the degree to which environmental support (varied from full, to partial, to none) influences study effort
Associations between personality, FoMO, susceptibility to design elements of social media, and problematic social media use
Certain personality traits, such as Neuroticism (positively), Conscientiousness (negatively), and Impulsivity (positively), as well as FoMO tendencies (positively) have been associated with problematic social media use.
Moreover, specific design elements of social media platforms have been criticized for prolonging the time users spent on the platforms and putatively contributing to problematic social media use.
Based on these findings and considerations, the present research project followed the aim to investigate the role of the susceptibility to the afore-mentioned design elements as a putative mediating variable in the relations between personality traits, FoMO, and problematic social media use.
The susceptibility to the design elements was defined as "spending more time on social media than initially intended due to design elements" (endless scrolling, endless streaming, etc.)
Study 1 - Effects of US Revaluation in Forward versus Backward Evaluative Conditioning
We manipulate the order of the presentation of the CS and US (forward [CS - US] vs. backward [US - CS]) in an evaluative conditioning procedure and test the sensitivity of the learned associations to US revaluation. Our main prediction is that forward evaluative conditioning is more resistant to US revaluation than backward evaluative conditioning. US revaluation will be manipulated via an additional learning phase, which will present information that confirms the evaluation of the US (congruent condition) or leads to a reversal of the evaluation of the USs (incongruent condition)
Transdiagnostic prevalence of functional disorders across Europe: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis
Functional disorders are excessive thoughts, feelings, or behaviors related to the somatic symptoms or associated health concerns, typically with a duration of 6 months for most days. Usually this condition leads to a repeated contact with health care providers to receive reassurance. As functional disorders occur outside the psychosomatic field, there is a bride range of nosology of them. They can be found in all disciplines such as general internal medicine, rheumatology, cardiology, and neurology. Functional disorders are widespread all over the world, however, due to the big variety of nosology, there is a lack of sufficient studies which focus on their prevalence. For that, we aim to investigate the transdiagnostic prevalence of functional disorders in adults across Europe
Algorithm aversion in Chinese classical poetry
To understand algorithm aversion in Chinese classical poetr
Is spontaneous sex ideal? An exploration of perceptions of spontaneous versus planned sex in romantic relationships.
Preregistration plan for cross sectional study investigating perceptions regarding sexual spontaneity and planning, and their associations with sexual desire and sexual and relationship satisfaction
Alcohol Use Across the Menstrual Cycle in a Psychiatric Outpatient Sample
Females who drink alcohol escalate their use more quickly than males, and are at higher risks of negative health (e.g., brain damage, liver disease, heart disease, breast cancer) and mental health consequences of alcohol use than male counterparts. Yet, there is insufficient research into potential female-specific mechanisms of alcohol use. The menstrual cycle offers one source of biological variability in propensity to drink. Animal models have shown that periovulatory increases in drinking are related to increased sensitivity to the rewarding properties of alcohol when estrogen levels are high (Hilderbrand & Lasek, 2018), and some human studies have also observed ovulatory increases in healthy samples of female drinkers (Martel, Roberts, & Eisenlohr-Moul, 2017). The role of progesterone in modulating alcohol use is less clear. In a recent review (Carroll, 2015) evaluating the impact of the perimenstrual phase on alcohol consumption, seven studies reviewed found increases in alcohol consumption perimenstrually (before or during the onset of menses), one found alcohol consumption decreases premenstrually (before onset of menses), and five found no relationship between cycle phase and alcohol consumption. Interestingly, some evidence suggests that motives for drinking may also vary across the menstrual cycle, such that drinking to cope peaks during the menstrual phase and social motivations peak in the follicular and ovulatory phases (Joyce, 2018). Finally, studies of menstrual cycle and alcohol use vary greatly in the population of interest, with recent research focusing on females with AUD, PMDD, or healthy controls. In order to better characterize whether and how the menstrual cycle may influence alcohol use among typical psychiatric patients, the present study recruited a transdiagnostic outpatient sample with high distress (in the context of a clinical trial recruiting for past-month suicidality) to evaluate cycle phase effects on likelihood of alcohol use, likelihood of binge drinking, and reasons for alcohol use. The present study evaluates the relationship between alcohol use and menstrual cycle phase in a sample of transdiagnostic psychiatric outpatients with past-month suicidal ideation. We analyze biological predictors (i.e., menstrual cycle phase), drinking patterns (i.e., drinking days, binge drinking, and number of drinks), and motives (i.e., drinking to cope) to better understand patterns of alcohol use in females. Although alcohol use is a complex behavior comprising genetic, social, and environmental factors, the previous data suggest that motive for drinking – which varies across cycle phase – may be a useful proximal predictor of likelihood of drinking or likelihood of binge drinking, which could lead to negative behavioral or health outcomes
Antagonistic Secondary Transfer Effect: Ethnic/Racial Groups in the US Survey
The secondary transfer effect (STE) of intergroup contact is a phenomenon whereby contact with one social group (i.e., primary outgroup) improves attitudes towards other social groups (i.e., secondary outgroup). We propose that contact has another, so far unconsidered and potentially harmful side-effect, that occurs when outgroups are perceived to be in conflict (antagonistic STE). In the presence of a conflict between the primary and secondary outgroups, positive (negative) contact with the primary outgroup is expected to have a negative (positive) effect on attitude towards the secondary outgroup