Explaining Prejudice Toward Americans and Europeans in Egypt: Closed-mindedness and Conservatism Mediate Effects of Religious Fundamentalism

With an Arab-Muslim sample of 160 Egyptian citizens from the greater Cairo area, we examined the role of religion in prejudice toward U.S. Americans and Europeans. When religious fundamentalism was tested concurrently with general religiousness, results showed that only religious fundamentalism significantly predicted both prejudices. In a second step we included closed-mindedness (CM), a facet of need for cognitive closure, and conservatism (RCON), a facet of right-wing authoritarianism, to explain the religion – prejudice link. Instead of using the two variables as parallel mediators, we assumed that CM is a predictor of RCON. Hence, in a first model we applied CM and RCON as serial mediators of the religious fundamentalism – prejudice relation. In a second model, an alternative approach was introduced where fundamentalism was predicted by CM and RCON; prejudice remained the outcome variable. Results showed that RCON had stronger effects in comparison to CM across all models and that religious fundamentalism was marginal or not significant when CM and RCON served as preceding variables in the second model suggesting that they may be more decisive than religious fundamentalism in the development of prejudice. Participants distinguished between U.S. Americans and Europeans with U.S. Americans being the more relevant outgroup in the religious context

Anchoring revisited: The role of the comparative question

Grau I, Bohner G. Anchoring revisited: The role of the comparative question. PLoS ONE. 2014;9(1): e86056.When people estimate a numeric value after judging whether it is larger or smaller than a high or low anchor value (comparative question), estimates are biased in the direction of the anchor. One explanation for this anchoring effect is that people selectively access knowledge consistent with the anchor value as part of a positive test strategy. Two studies (total N = 184) supported the alternative explanation that people access knowledge consistent with their own answer to the comparative question. Specifically, anchoring effects emerged when the answer to the comparative question was unexpected (lower than the low anchor or higher than the high anchor). For expected answers (lower than the high anchor or higher than the low anchor), however, anchoring effects were attenuated or reversed. The anchor value itself was almost never reported as an absolute estimate

Law students’ judgments of a rape victim’s statement : the role of displays of emotion and acceptance of sexual aggression myths

Female rape victims who display "appropriate" emotions (versus "inappropriate" or no emotions) are often judged to be more credible. The authors studied the interplay of different emotion displays with perceivers' acceptance of modern myths about sexual aggression (AMMSA) in predicting judgments of credibility and blame. Law students (N= 120) completed a 16-item AMMSA scale and watched a video showing a simulated interview with a rape victim (played by an actress). The emotion displayed by the victim (sad, angry, or neutral) was experimentally manipulated; her statement's verbal content was held constant. Main dependent variables were perceived victim credibility, victim blame, severity of the injury, and likelihood of recovery. Results showed that AMMSA strongly predicted all dependent variables across conditions. Effects of displayed emotions were less pervasive and depended on participants' gender and AMMSA: At higher (vs. lower) levels of AMMSA, women - but not men - judged the sad victim's statement to be most credible, and the angry victim's statement to be least credible, with the neutral statement falling in between. The findings suggest that perceivers may be better at keeping their judgements free from unwanted external influences (the emotional displays) than unwanted internal influences (their own AMMSA). The authors discuss future directions regarding the mechanisms involved and practical implications for the legal context

Mood and persuasion: affective states influence the processing of persuasive communications

Dieser technische Bericht beschäftigt sich mit Fortschritten in der experimentellen Sozialpsychologie. Es werden die verschiedenen Stimmungen und Emotionen von Informationsprozessen angesprochen. Dabei werden Überredungs- bzw. Überzeugungsstrategien bei Berücksichtigung vom Aspekt der Stimmung besonders untersucht. So zum Beispiel auch die Stimmung, wenn ein Urteil, eine Entscheidung gefällt wird. (US

What tiggers causal attributions? The impact of valence and subjective probability

'In einer Reihe von Feldstudien und Simulationsexperimenten wurde gezeigt, daß sowohl erwartungsdiskrepante als auch negative Ereignisse das Ausmaß kausalen Nachdenkens erhöhen. Da im Alltag allerdings unangenehme Ereignisse für unwahrscheinlicher gehalten werden als angenehme, war somit die subjektive Wahrscheinlichkeit eines Ereignisses mit der durch die Valenz des Ereignisses ausgelösten Stimmung konfundiert. Um diese Konfundierung aufzulösen, wurden in einem Laborexperiment subjektive Erwartung und Valenz unabhängig voneinander variiert. Versuchspersonen bearbeiteten einen angeblichen Berufseignungstest und erhielten anschließend eine Erfolgs- und Mißerfolgsrückmeldung, bezogen auf ein vom Versuchsleiter vorgegebenes Kriterium. Die subjektive Erfolgswahrscheinlichkeit wurde variiert, indem den Versuchspersonen die Verteilung von Erfolg und Mißerfolg in der Population mitgeteilt wurde ('23 Prozent vs. 77 Prozent der Teilnehmer erreichen das Kriterium'). Die Ergebnisse zeigen einen ausgeprägten Effekt der Valenz: Sowohl die Intensität des kausalen Nachdenkens als auch die Anzahl der Ursachen für das Ergebnis, über die die Versuchspersonen nachdenken, ist nach negativer Rückmeldung größer als nach positiver. Die vorliegende Untersuchung bietet keine Evidenz für eine Zunahme kausalen Nachdenkens nach unerwarteten Ereignissen. Verschiedene vermittelnde Prozesse werden diskutiert.' (Autorenreferat

Happy and mindless? Moods and the processing of persuasive communications

Die Studie erforscht die Wirkung unterschiedlicher Bewußtseinszustände, d. h. von guter und schlechter Laune, auf die Verarbeitung gegenargumentativer Kommunikationssituationen. Im speziellen wird die kognitive Reaktion auf Versuche der Einstellungsänderung und argumentativen Überzeugung getestet. Ergebnisse eines mit 87 weiblichen nichtdepressiven Studentinnen der Universität Heidelberg durchgeführten Experiments im Zusammenhang mit einer Analyse der kognitiven Reaktionen verdeutlichen, daß die Beziehung zwischen Gefühlslage und Qualität des Arguments bestimmt ist durch die von der Gefühlslage beeinflußte kognitive Verarbeitung des Kommunikationsinhaltes. Zusätzliche Analysen ergaben, daß diese kognitive Verarbeitung bei depressiven Personen in gleicher Weise verläuft wie bei Personen, bei denen negative Gefühlslage induziert wurde. Abschließend kann festgestellt werden, daß eine Einstellungsänderung über starke Argumentation erfolgreicher bei Personen in neutraler oder negativer Gefühlslage zu erzielen ist, eine schwache Argumentation bei einem 'gutgelaunten Publikum' besser ankommt. (ML

Lateral attitude change: In search of generalization and displacement effects in majority and minority influence. Research Report

Bohner G, Linne R, Glaser T, Boege R. Lateral attitude change: In search of generalization and displacement effects in majority and minority influence. Research Report. Bielefeld: Abt. Psychologie, Arbeitseinheit 05 - Sozialpsychologie und experimentalpsychologische Genderforschung; 2020.Hypotheses derived from the lateral attitude change (LAC) model were tested in a study on majority and minority influence. The authors predicted that reading majority arguments would lead to explicit and implicit focal attitude change as well as LAC (i.e., generalization), whereas reading minority arguments would lead to explicit LAC, but not to explicit focal attitude change (i.e., displacement). In a 3 (source: majority vs. minority vs. control) x 2 (order of attitude assessments: explicit-implicit vs. implicit-explicit) design, students (N = 180) read arguments against an unconditional basic income (focal topic) that came from either a majority or a minority, or no arguments (control condition). Later, their explicit and implicit attitudes toward the focal topic and four lateral topics (e.g., inclusive schooling) were assessed. Individual differences in the need for uniqueness were assessed as a potential moderator of majority and minority influence. The results showed focal explicit and implicit attitude change in both the majority and minority conditions, but no evidence for LAC. Need for uniqueness did not moderate the effects of majority or minority arguments. Potential reasons for the lack of evidence for LAC and implications for future research are discussed

Asking difficult questions: task complexity increases the impact of response alternatives

In einem Experiment wurden Versuchspersonen Fragen zu ihrem Fernsehkonsum gestellt, wobei einmal nach der absoluten Größe ('Wieviel Stunden sehen Sie fern?'), zum anderen nach der relativen Größe ('Wieviel Prozent Ihrer Freizeit sehen Sie fern?') gefragt wurde. Es stellte sich heraus, daß mit steigender Komplexität der Frage auch der Einfluß der angebotenen Antwortalternativen zunimmt; werden viele Alternativen angeboten, werden auch öfters höhere Werte genannt. (psz

Creation of stimulus sets for studying lateral attitude change. Research Report

Boege R, Linne R, Glaser T, Bohner G. Creation of stimulus sets for studying lateral attitude change. Research Report. Bielefeld: Abt. Psychologie, Arbeitseinheit 05 - Sozialpsychologie und experimentalpsychologische Genderforschung; 2020.The Lateral Attitude Change Model (LAC) model (Glaser et al., 2015) features two phenomena of attitude change: generalization and displacement. Generalization occurs when attitude change toward a focal attitude object X (on both implicit and explicit levels) generalizes toward a lateral attitude object Y. Displacement occurs when there is no explicit attitude change toward X, but explicit and implicit attitudes toward Y do change nonetheless. The LAC model specifies conditions leading to each phenomenon and the cognitive processes involved. In a research proposal, Glaser and Bohner (2015) described several experiments designed to test the LAC model. In three studies reported here (total N = 281), 145 attitude objects were pilot-tested for use in those experiments. The focus lay on the similarity between objects, which is the main proposed moderator of LAC. Study 1 featured four sets of dinosaur drawings, which were tested for neutrality and similarity. Study 2 featured eight sets of attitude objects depicted in photographs (e.g., household articles and sports equipment), which were tested for valence and similarity. Studies 3(a) and 3(b) featured socio-political issues, which were tested for valence, importance, similarity, and participants’ awareness of similarity. All stimuli and the results of pilot testing are presented