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To what extent do domain-general and domain-specific neural networks generalise across interactions with human and artificial agents? In this exploratory study, we analysed a publicly available fMRI dataset (n = 22; Rauchbauer, et al., 2019) to probe the similarities and dissimilarities in neural architecture while participants conversed with another person or a robot. Incorporating trial-by-trial dynamics of the interactions, listening and speaking, we used whole-brain, region-of-interest, and functional connectivity analyses to test response profiles within and across social or non-social, domain-specific and domain-general networks, i.e., the person perception, theory-of-mind, object-specific, language, multiple-demand networks. Listening to a robot compared to a human resulted in higher activation in the language network, especially in areas associated with listening comprehension, and in the person perception network. No differences in activity of the theory-of-mind network were found. Results from the functional connectivity analysis showed no difference between interactions with a human or robot in within- and between-network connectivity. Together, these results suggest that while similar regions are activated during communication regardless of the type of conversational agent, activity profiles during listening point to a dissociation at a lower-level or perceptual level, but not higher-order cognitive level.

Recognizing the role that facial appearance plays in guiding social interactions, here we investigated how occlusions of the bottom-face region affect facial impressions of trustworthiness and dominance. Previous studies suggesting that different facial features impact inferences on these traits sustain the hypothesis that wearing a face mask will differently affect each trait inference. And specifically, that trustworthiness impressions will be more disrupted by this type of face occlusion than dominance impressions. In two studies, we addressed this possibility by occluding the bottom face region of faces that were previously shown to convey different levels of dominance and trustworthiness, and tested differences in the ability to discriminate between these trait levels across occlusion conditions. In Study 1 faces were occluded by a mask, and in Study 2 by a square image. In both studies, results showed that although facial occlusions generally reduced participants’ confidence on their trait judgments, the ability to discriminate facial trustworthiness was more strongly affected than the ability to discriminate facial dominance. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In two studies, we find that climbing the societal ladder has positive associations with women's well-being and relationship outcomes but can also have negative consequences when women surpass their male partners in status. In Study 1 (N = 314), we found that women who reported having higher personal status also reported several positive relationship outcomes (e.g., higher relationship quality than women with lower personal status). However, these associations reversed for women who surpassed their partners in social status. In Study 2, a diary study (N = 112), we show how women's implicit endorsement of gender stereotypes qualifies the negative associations of surpassing one's partner in status. Among women with higher status than their partner, traditional women intend to adjust their behavior to fit the gender norm (e.g., thinking about reducing work hours in favor of their time at home), whereas egalitarian women did not, but felt guilty toward their partner. We show how the relationship dynamics of women who have surpassed their partners in social status should be considered when attempting to tackle structural discrimination and advance women's careers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays an important role in modern society. AI applications are omnipresent and assist many decisions we make in daily life. A common and important feature of such AI applications are user models. These models allow an AI application to adapt to a specific user. Here, we argue that user models in AI can be optimized by modeling these user models more closely to models of human cognition. We identify three levels at which insights from human cognition can be—and have been—integrated in user models. Such integration can be very loose with user models only being inspired by general knowledge of human cognition or very tight with user models implementing specific cognitive processes. Using AI-based applications in the context of education as a case study, we demonstrate that user models that are more deeply rooted in models of cognition offer more valid and more fine-grained adaptations to an individual user. We propose that such user models can also advance the development of explainable AI.

The perception of being treated fairly during decision-making processes is an important topic in the research literature on law and society. Many studies have indeed found that perceived procedural justice affects people’s reactions, for instance, by increasing their trust in legal authorities and lowering their intentions to protest against these authorities’ decisions. Here, we reveal support for this fair process effect and point to some of its potential boundary conditions. In our experimental study, 239 participants imagined being the defendant during a single-judge criminal court hearing that used either a fair or an unfair procedure. Following the experience of a fair as opposed to an unfair procedure, participants showed more trust in judges and were less inclined to protest against the judicial ruling. Interestingly, the effect of the procedure manipulation on trust in judges was moderated by the extent to which participants attributed their case outcomes to external causes. We found a fair process effect among participants with relatively low external attribution ratings, while this effect attenuated and was not statistically significant among participants whose external attribution ratings were relatively high. These findings point to the possibility that attributional processes can moderate people’s responses to procedural justice in legally relevant contexts.

Risk-taking is traditionally explained through outcome-value expectancy models. Recently, however, it has been demonstrated that immediate versus delayed feedback increases risk-taking independently of expected value. The current work takes a novel approach to investigate behavioral motivation in different risk-taking contexts, building on recent progress in identifying the reinforcing impact of actioneffectiveness. Participants performed 1 of 2 different versions of the Balloon Analogue Risk task (BART) in which an action increases (Experiment 1 and 2) or decreases (Experiment 3) the risk of losing real money. Importantly, action-effectiveness was subtly manipulated. In 3 experiments, we found that action-effectiveness reinforces action tendency in both risk-taking contexts. In addition, the reinforcing effect was independent of participants’ explicit knowledge regarding the action-effectiveness manipulation and their deliberate expectancy-based risk strategy. Overall, the findings strongly suggest that action-effectiveness motivates action and not risk-taking per SE Accordingly, the findings shed light on the BART suggesting that in this task, higher scores could be due to higher motivation for action and not necessarily to more risk-taking

The current paper aims to provide insight into judges’ perceptions of how fairly they treat litigants and how important case outcomes are to litigants, and whether these perceptions relate to litigants' perceptions of procedural justice and outcome importance. Respondents were litigants involved in bankruptcy, landlord-tenant, and administrative law cases and judges handling these cases at the district court of the Mid-Netherlands. Both litigants and judges indicated outcome importance and procedural justice. Litigants also indicated their trust in judges. Multilevel analyses using hierarchical regression showed a positive association between judicial and litigant perceptions of outcome importance and no significant association between judges' and litigants’ perceptions of procedural justice. This indicates that whereas judges and litigants largely agreed on how important case outcomes were, their views about how fairly judges handled cases diverged. These insights enhance our understanding of linkages and discrepancies between judges' and litigants' views on important aspects of the legal system.

Item does not contain fulltext Objective: The main aim was to investigate whether forensic psychiatric inpatients can be distinguished from prisoners and non-offender healthy controls based on their performance on neurocognitive tasks measuring behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation. Method: This study used preexisting data from 120 male forensic psychiatric inpatients, 60 male prisoners and 66 male non-offender healthy controls. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to study the links between our outcome measures and group membership. To this end, we used outcome measures from a Continuous Performance task, an emotional Stroop task and behavioral inhibition system and behavioral activation system (BIS/BAS) questionnaire. Results: BIS/BAS scores had discriminatory power for distinguishing forensic psychiatric inpatients from prisoners. Measures from the Continuous Performance task and the emotional Stroop task did not significantly differ between the offender groups. Conclusions: BIS/BAS are relevant concepts in the context of criminal behavior and could play a role in the development of new approaches to subtype offender populations, because they seem useful for differentiating forensic psychiatric inpatients from prisoners. For clinical practice, our results suggest that these concepts should be routinely assessed as part of neuropsychological testing in forensic psychiatric settings. 13 p.

Background Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing and hand washing have been used as effective means to reduce virus transmission in the Netherlands. However, these measures pose a societal challenge as they require people to change their customary behaviours in various contexts. The science of habit formation is potentially useful for informing policy-making in public health, but the current literature largely overlooked the role of habit in predicting and explaining these preventive behaviours. Our research aimed to describe habit formation processes of physical distancing and hand washing and to estimate the influences of habit strength and intention on behavioural adherence. Methods A longitudinal survey was conducted between July and November 2020 on a representative Dutch sample (n = 800). Respondents reported their intentions, habit strengths, and adherence regarding six context-specific preventive behaviours on a weekly basis. Temporal developments of the measured variables were visualized, quantified, and mapped onto five distinct phases of the pandemic. Regression models were used to test the effects of intention, habit strength, and their interaction on behavioural adherence. Results Dutch respondents generally had strong intentions to adhere to all preventive measures and their adherence rates were between 70% and 90%. They also self-reported to experience their behaviours as more automatic over time, and this increasing trend in habit strength was more evident for physical-distancing than for hand washing behaviours. For all six behaviours, both intention and habit strength predicted subsequent adherence (all ps < 2e-16). In addition, the predictive power of intention decreased over time and was weaker for respondents with strong habits for physical distancing when visiting supermarkets (B = -0.63, p B = -0.54, p Conclusions People’s adaptations to physical-distancing and hand washing measures involve both intentional and habitual processes. For public health management, our findings highlight the importance of using contextual cues to promote habit formation, especially for maintaining physical-distancing practices. For habit theories, our study provides a unique dataset that covers multiple health behaviours in a critical real-world setting.

Organizations play a key role in maintaining employee wellbeing. Some research suggests that one way to protect employee wellbeing is to treat them fairly (procedural justice), especially when fair job outcomes (distributive justice) cannot be ensured. Yet, previous studies have not consistently found this interaction effect between distributive and procedural justice. This study investigates job autonomy as a boundary condition to the Distributive Justice × Procedural Justice effect on wellbeing outcomes. To test our hypothesized three-way interaction between distributive justice, procedural justice, and job autonomy, we collected cross-sectional data among Dutch employees in two studies. We used validated self-report measures of our core constructs to test our hypothesis on two employee wellbeing indicators: job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Results show a significant three-way interaction effect on both job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion in Study 1 (N = 411), and a significant three-way interaction effect on emotional exhaustion in Study 2 (N = 1117). Simple slopes analyses of the significant three-way interactions showed that distributive justice and procedural justice interact to predict wellbeing outcomes among employees with low job autonomy. Among employees with high job autonomy, distributive justice and procedural justice do not interact to predict wellbeing. The results contribute to the employee wellbeing literature by showing that job autonomy is a boundary condition to the Distributive Justice × Procedural Justice effect on wellbeing outcomes. We discuss other implications of our findings for the workplace and the ramifications for employees with low and high job autonomy.

In two experiments, we examined how men respond to women who either challenge or legitimize societal gender inequality, and how gender identification moderates these responses. We hypothesized that men feel less threatened by women who legitimize (vs. challenge) the gender hierarchy, and evaluate these women more positively. To investigate these expectations, we assessed self-reports (Studies 1 and 2) and cardiovascular threat/challenge responses (Study 2). Both studies showed that men experience less negative emotions when presented with a woman who legitimized (vs. challenged) the gender hierarchy. Moreover, among men with a relatively high gender identification, a woman who challenged the gender hierarchy elicited a physiological response pattern indicative of threat, whereas a woman who legitimized the gender hierarchy elicited a pattern indicative of challenge. Results are discussed in terms of social identity theory, status threat, and self-distancing behavior.

Background Key to curtailing the COVID-19 pandemic are wide-scale screening strategies. An ideal screen is one that would not rely on transporting, distributing, and collecting physical specimens. Given the olfactory impairment associated with COVID-19, we developed a perceptual measure of olfaction that relies on smelling household odorants and rating them online. Methods Each participant was instructed to select 5 household items, and rate their perceived odor pleasantness and intensity using an online visual analogue scale. We used this data to assign an olfactory perceptual fingerprint, a value that reflects the perceived difference between odorants. We tested the performance of this real-time tool in a total of 13,484 participants (462 COVID-19 positive) from 134 countries who provided 178,820 perceptual ratings of 60 different household odorants. Results We observe that olfactory ratings are indicative of COVID-19 status in a country, significantly correlating with national infection rates over time. More importantly, we observe indicative power at the individual level (79% sensitivity and 87% specificity). Critically, this olfactory screen remains effective in participants with COVID-19 but without symptoms, and in participants with symptoms but without COVID-19. Conclusions The current odorant-based olfactory screen adds a component to online symptom-checkers, to potentially provide an added first line of defense that can help fight disease progression at the population level. The data derived from this tool may allow better understanding of the link between COVID-19 and olfaction.

Forgiveness is crucial for establishing coparenting relationships following divorce, yet little is known about the predictors of forgiveness after divorce. In 2 studies, we explore dispositional and divorce-specific factors that correlate with ex-partner forgiveness. In Study 1, we used data from a convenience sample of 136 divorced parents. In Study 2, we used a clinical sample of 165 parents involved in a complex (high-conflict) divorce, who were referred to treatment because of the threat their conflicts posed to their children's well-being. Across samples, forgiveness was negatively associated with conflict severity, narcissistic entitlement, hostile attributions, and traumatic impact of the divorce, and positively with trust and acceptance of the divorce. The main predictors of forgiveness in both samples were more acceptance of the divorce and less narcissistic entitlement. Forgiveness was unrelated to dispositional self-control and trait anger in either sample. We found no evidence of cross-partner effects in Study 2, except for women's hostile attributions on men's forgiveness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Following a corporate disaster such as bankruptcy, people in general and damaged parties, in particular, want to know what happened and whether the company's directors are to blame. The accurate assessment of directors’ liability can be jeopardized by having to judge in hindsight with full knowledge of the adverse outcome. The present study investigates whether professional legal investigators such as judges and lawyers are affected by hindsight bias and outcome bias when evaluating directors’ conduct in a bankruptcy case. Additionally, to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these biases, we also examine whether free will beliefs can predict susceptibility to hindsight bias and outcome bias in this context. In two studies (total N = 1,729), we demonstrate that legal professionals tend to judge a director's actions more negatively and perceive bankruptcy as more foreseeable in hindsight than in foresight and that these effects are significantly stronger for those who endorse the notion that humans have free will. This contribution is particularly timely considering the many companies that are currently going bankrupt or are facing bankruptcy amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Dutch Golden Age painters could convincingly depict all sorts of materials. How did they do it and how do we perceive them as such, are questions that only recently have started to be addressed by art historians and vision scientists, respectively. This paper aims to discuss how a booklet of pictorial recipes written by the Dutch painter Willem Beurs in 1692 constitutes an index of key image features for material depiction and perception. Beurs’ recipes connect different materials according to their shared visual features, and offer the profiles, i.e., the optimal combinations, of these features to render a wide range of materials. By combining representation and perception, the knowledge of painters about the depiction of materials can help to understand the mechanisms of the visual system for material perception, and these in turn can explain the pictorial features that make the pictorial representation of materials so convincing.

The influence of general wine imagery vividness on consumers' reported desire to drink was investigated. In Study 1, the Vividness of Wine Imagery Questionnaire (VWIQ) was revised and validated so that it included the dimensions of sight, smell, flavor, and mouthfeel. Mouthfeel is an important factor in wine appreciation, both for consumers and wine experts. In Study 2, we demonstrated the usage of VWIQ in a consumer context: participants were asked to indicate their desire to drink a range of wines that differed in familiarity, with half the participants also receiving a multisensory description of the wine in addition to information regarding the wine's geographical origin and grape variety. Without a description, consumers with higher imagery vividness reported higher desire to drink compared with consumers with lower imagery vividness. However, with a description, the desire to drink from the lower imagery vividness group increased, matching the higher imagery vividness group. Practical application: The ability to imagine helps people to plan for the future. In effect, imagery ability can influence how consumers make purchase decisions. Sensory descriptions thus seemed to override differences in people's ability to imagine a wine. In summary, this research demonstrates the value of VWIQ as a tool to tailor advertisements and wine descriptions to specific groups of consumers.

Previous research has mostly approached face recognition and target identifcation by focusing on face perception mechanisms, but memory mechanisms also appear to play a role. Here, we examined how the presence of a mask interferes with the memory mechanisms involved in face recognition, focusing on the dynamic interplay between encoding and recognition processes. We approach two known memory efects: (a) matching study and test condi‑ tions efects (i.e., by presenting masked and/or unmasked faces) and (b) testing expectation efects (i.e., knowing in advance that a mask could be put on or taken of ). Across three experiments using a yes/no recognition paradigm, the presence of a mask was orthogonally manipulated at the study and the test phases. All data showed no evidence of matching efects. In Experiment 1, the presence of masks either at study or test impaired the correct identifca‑ tion of a target. But in Experiments 2 and 3, in which the presence of masks at study or test was manipulated within participants, only masks presented at test-only impaired face identifcation. In these conditions, test expectations led participants to use similar encoding strategies to process masked and unmasked faces. Across all studies, participants were more liberal (i.e., used a more lenient criterion) when identifying masked faces presented at the test. We discuss these results and propose that to better understand how people may identify a face wearing a mask, researchers should take into account that memory is an active process of discrimination, in which expectations regarding test conditions may induce an encoding strategy that enables overcoming perceptual defcits. Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Contains fulltext : 237007.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) How do situations influence food desire? Although eating typically occurs in rich background situations, research on food desire often focuses on the properties of foods and consumers, rather than on the situations in which eating takes place. Here, we take a grounded cognition perspective and suggest that a situation that is congruent with consuming a food increases simulations of eating it, which, in turn, affect desire, and the expected and actual liking of the food. We tested this idea in four pre-registered experiments (N = 524). Participants processed an image of a food presented in a congruent situation, an incongruent situation, or no background situation. Compared to the incongruent situation, the congruent situation increased expected liking of the food and desire, and this was partially or fully mediated by eating simulations. The congruent situation also increased salivation, a physiological indicator of preparing to eat. However, there was only weak and indirect evidence for congruence effects on actual liking of the food when tasted. These findings show that situational cues can affect desire for food through eating simulations. Thus, background situations play an important but understudied role in human food desires. We address implications for research using food images, and for applications to promote healthy and sustainable eating behaviour. 19 p.

Previous research indicates that the experience of agency over one's actions and movements is influenced by movement predictability as well as movement distance (Hon, Seow, & Pereira, 2018). Addressing previous limitations, we present a compelling test of the relation between movement distance and movement agency. Participants in two studies moved targets predictably or unpredictably, and for short, medium, or long distances. Following prior research, distractor cues moved in the opposite direction of the targets. Results showed that movement agency scores were higher for predictable compared to unpredictable movements. Results also consistently showed that when movements were predictable, longer distances by either the target or the distractor cues increased agency relative to shorter distances. Our findings replicate and extend previous findings showing that stimulus movement distances influence judgments of movement agency.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has turned out to be a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Curbing the pandemic requires rapid and extensive behavioural change to limit social interaction, including physical distancing. In this study, we tested the notion that inducing empathy for people vulnerable to the virus may result in actual distancing behaviour beyond the mere motivation to do so. In a large field experiment with a sequential case–control design, we found that (a) empathy prompts may increase distancing as assessed by camera recordings and (b) effectiveness of prompts depends on the dynamics of the pandemic and associated public health policies. In sum, the present study demonstrates the potential of empathy-generating interventions to promote pro-social behaviour and emphasizes the necessity of field experiments to assess the role of context before advising policy makers to implement measures derived from behavioural science. Please refer to Supplementary Material to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

How is public engagement perceived to contribute to open science? This commentary highlights common reflections on this question from interviews with 12 public engagement fellows in Utrecht University’s Open Science Programme in the Netherlands. We identify four reasons why public engagement is an essential enabler of open science. Interaction between academics and society can: (1) better align science with the needs of society; (2) secure a relationship of trust between science and society; (3) increase the quality and impact of science; and (4) support the impact of open access and FAIR data practices (data which meet principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability). To be successful and sustainable, such public engagement requires support in skills training and a form of institutionalisation in a university-wide system, but, most of all, the fellows express the importance of a formal and informal recognition and rewards system. Our findings suggest that in order to make public engagement an integral part of open science, universities should invest in institutional support, create awareness, and stimulate dialogue among staff members on how to ‘do’ good public engagement.

Qualitative interviews with one hundred defendants in Dutch criminal cases examine whether perceived procedural justice is a relevant concern for defendants, and, if so, which procedural justice components they refer to. The study provides a point of epistemological departure from the quantitative studies dominating the field, as it assessed which components of procedural justice (if any) respondents put forward themselves rather than asking about predetermined procedural justice components. The large majority of respondents mentioned procedural justice issues themselves, and six components were at the core of their procedural justice perceptions: (1) information on which decisions are based, (2) interpersonal treatment, (3) due consideration, (4) neutrality, (5) voice, and (6) accuracy. Although these procedural justice components largely correspond with the literature, respondents thus mentioned some components more often, and others less often, than the literature would suggest. In particular, neutrality plays an important role in the Dutch legal context examined here.

We identify the need for a new wave of research on adolescent secrecy in their relationship with parents that relinquishes the focus on the nomothetic objective of finding general principles. This third wave builds on novel insights on three fallacies committed in previous waves of research: (1) between-person effects do not necessarily provide insights into within-family processes (the ecological fallacy), (2) within-family processes are not necessarily homogeneous across adolescents and families (the one size fits all fallacy), and (3) longer-term effects are not necessarily identical to short-term processes (the galloping horse fallacy). This approach promises to provide us with a more person-specific understanding of adolescent secrecy from parents, which enables more tailored insights as to when and for whom secrecy is bad versus good.

Exposure to alcohol ads increases alcohol consumption. A potential partial explanation is that certain (e.g., humorous) alcohol ads trigger conversations which can, in turn, increase drinking behaviors. Therefore, we investigated the influence of humor in alcohol ads on conversational occurrence, length, and valence about alcohol and alcohol ads. One hundred and fourteen participants were shown one of three beer ads (humor; positive; no ad), after which participants could voluntarily discuss the ad and alcohol. Next, all participants were requested to discuss the topic and answered a questionnaire assessing conversational valence and ad, brand, and alcohol evaluations. Results showed that humor leads to more conversations about the ad and alcohol, longer conversations about alcohol, and more positive conversations about the ad. This interpersonal communication, and especially conversational valence, was subsequently related to ad, brand, and alcohol evaluations. These findings may explain the effect of alcohol ads on alcohol consumption, and provide important starting points for using humor as a potentially effective behavior change tool.

Mobile health (mHealth) intervention systems can employ adaptive strategies to interact with users. Instead of designing such complex strategies manually, reinforcement learning (RL) can be used to adaptively optimize intervention strategies concerning the user’s context. In this paper, we focus on the issue of overwhelming interactions when learning a good adaptive strategy for the user in RL-based mHealth intervention agents. We present a data-driven approach integrating psychological insights and knowledge of historical data. It allows RL agents to optimize the strategy of delivering context-aware notifications from empirical data when counterfactual information (user responses when receiving notifications) is missing. Our approach also considers a constraint on the frequency of notifications, which reduces the interaction burden for users. We evaluated our approach in several simulation scenarios using real large-scale running data. The results indicate that our RL agent can deliver notifications in a manner that realizes a higher behavioral impact than context-blind strategies. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10916-021-01773-0.

This study aims to put perceived procedural justice to a critical test in the context of Dutch criminal court hearings. To that end, we surveyed 198 criminal defendants to examine whether their perceptions of procedural fairness were significantly associated with trust in judges and intentions to protest against judicial rulings, among other variables. We also examine the possibility that sometimes unfair procedures may have nice aspects, because they offer opportunities to attribute negative outcomes to external causes. Previous studies conducted in different settings support this line of reasoning by showing that associations between perceived procedural justice and other variables are sometimes attenuated or even reversed, particularly when people feel strongly evaluated. The current study takes these insights into the novel context of Dutch criminal court hearings by focusing on defendants with a non-Western ethnic-cultural background. Some of these defendants may feel negatively evaluated by society, which can manifest as a high level of perceived discrimination. Thus, we examine whether the associations between perceived procedural justice and important other variables may be attenuated or reversed depending on respondents’ perceptions of everyday discrimination and their outcome judgments. Our results revealed significant associations between perceived procedural justice on the one hand and trust in judges and protest intentions on the other hand, which remained intact regardless of perceptions of everyday discrimination and outcome judgments. Hence, even in this real-life courtroom context, procedural justice was a relevant concern. Taken together, our findings support the importance of perceived procedural justice, even when it is put to a critical test.

Most research on the development of personality traits like the Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) focuses on local effects like parenting style or attachment, but people live in a larger society that may set the stage for any local effects. Here we paired nation-level data on the traits from 49 nations with several milieu indicators (e.g., life expectancy, homicide rates) from three timepoints (and change among them) where the average participant (≈ 22yo) would have been a child (≈ 6yo), a pre-teen (≈ 11yo), and a teenager (≈ 16yo). Congruent with previous research, variance in narcissism was far more sensitive to variance in milieu conditions in general and across all three time points than variance in Machiavellianism or psychopathy. The milieu conditions differentiated the traits somewhat with income and education revealing negative correlations with narcissism, positive correlations with Machiavellianism, and null correlations with psychopathy. Sex differences in Machiavellianism and narcissism were correlated with homicide rates across the three timepoints. The evidence that changes in milieu conditions in ones' past predicts the traits was erratic, but larger sex differences in the traits were associated with decreased life expectancies and homicide rates between childhood and pre-teens. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

Humans are agents that engage in intentional action based on the goals or desired outcomes they have in mind. For goal achievement to materialize one needs to know what action causes the desired outcome and how to act on it. A classic question in psychology is how such intentions translate into action. This link between thought and behavior is elegantly explained by the ideomotor (IM) theory, according to which the mere ideation of an outcome would even be enough to set the relevant action in motion. Little is known, however, about the conditions under which action-outcome representations are formed. It is generally assumed this happens whenever people observe events that follow their actions, suggesting that people spontaneously encode these events as outcomes, linking them to the actions that produced them. Yet, this does not always appear to be the case. In the current thesis, we ask the question: “When and how do people actually represent events in the world as outcomes that are the result of their actions?”. What we found is that the automatic spreading of activation via mere imagination should be cautioned; at least, future research should consider the joint impacts of propositions and associations on the ideomotor effects. Upon the broad implication, exploring the factors related to causal inferences allow us to investigate the mechanism of information processing when interacting with other people or with the environment.

Our ability to generate efficient behavior from novel instructions is critical for our adaptation to changing environments. Despite the absence of previous experience, novel instructed content is quickly encoded into an action-based or procedural format, facilitating automatic task processing. In the current work, we investigated the link between proceduralization and motor simulation, specifically, whether the covert activation of the task-relevant responses is used during the assembly of action-based instructions representations. Across three online experiments, we used a concurrent finger-tapping task to block motor simulation during the encoding of novel stimulus-response (S-R) associations. The overlap between the mappings and the motor task at the response level was manipulated. We predicted a greater impairment at mapping implementation in the overlapping condition, where the mappings' relevant response representations were already loaded by the motor demands, and thus, could not be used in the upcoming task simulation. This hypothesis was robustly supported by the three datasets. Nonetheless, the overlapping effect was not modulated by further manipulations of proceduralization-related variables (preparation demands in Exp.2, mapping novelty in Exp.3). Importantly, a fourth control experiment ruled out that our results were driven by alternative accounts as fatigue or negative priming. Overall, we provided strong evidence towards the involvement of motor simulation during anticipatory task reconfiguration. However, this involvement was rather general, and not restricted to novelty scenarios. Finally, these findings can be also integrated into broader models of anticipatory task control, stressing the role of the motor system during preparation.

Effective human action is dependent on goals that are cued in the environment. A major challenge in examining the environmental control of goal-directed behavior concerns a proper test of the mediating role of outcome value in cue-driven behavior. Building on the Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm, in two experiments we tested a novel forced-choice multiple response task that allowed us to test specific PIT effects by analyzing RTs and accuracy. We hypothesized and found that a Pavlovian cue that was predictive of low or high valued outcomes triggered instrumental responses when the cue and response shared the same outcome compared to when the cue and response did not share the same outcome. Importantly, these effects were more pronounced for high (vs. low) value outcomes, suggesting a value-based specific PIT effect. Theoretical implications and future directions for this novel PIT paradigm are briefly discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Intergroup dynamics shape the ways in which we interact with other people. We feel more empathy towards ingroup members compared to outgroup members, and can even feel pleasure when an outgroup member experiences misfortune, known as schadenfreude. Here, we test the extent to which these intergroup biases emerge during interactions with robots. We measured trial-by-trial fluctuations in emotional reactivity to the outcome of a competitive reaction time game to assess both empathy and schadenfreude in arbitrary human-human and human-robot teams. Across four experiments (total 'n' = 361), we observed a consistent empathy and schadenfreude bias driven by team membership. People felt more empathy towards ingroup members than outgroup members and more schadenfreude towards outgroup members. The existence of an intergroup bias did not depend on the nature of the agent: the same effects were observed for human-human and human–robot teams. People reported similar levels of empathy and schadenfreude towards a human and robot player. The human likeness of the robot did not consistently influence this intergroup bias. In other words, similar empathy and schadenfreude biases were observed for both humanoid and mechanoid robots. For all teams, this bias was influenced by the level of team identification; individuals who identified more with their team showed stronger intergroup empathy and schadenfreude bias. Together, we show that similar intergroup dynamics that shape our interactions with people can also shape interactions with robots. Our results highlight the importance of taking intergroup biases into account when examining social dynamics of human-robot interactions.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic vulnerability factor for emotional disorders. Inspired by Construal Level Theory, the present research investigated the possibility that future time perspective (FTP) might be linked to lower levels of IU. After all, future-oriented construals can lead people to place more weight on long-term goals, leading to a better tolerance of current uncertainties. Results indeed revealed that higher FTP was associated with lower IU. Moreover, long-term goals generally involve more self-control than immediate gratification. In accordance with this line of reasoning, we explored whether self-control could both mediate and moderate the relationship between FTP and IU. Mediation analysis confirmed that higher FTP was associated with greater self-control, which in turn was linked to less IU. However, the moderation effect was not observed. The discussion explains how the current findings expand our knowledge of the nature of IU, suggesting theoretical and clinical implications for dealing with it.

Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people to save many others (‘instrumental harm’) reduces trust, while maximizing the welfare of everyone equally (‘impartial beneficence’) may increase trust. In a multi-site experiment spanning 22 countries on six continents, participants (N = 23,929) completed self-report (N = 17,591) and behavioural (N = 12,638) measures of trust in leaders who endorsed utilitarian or non-utilitarian principles in dilemmas concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Across both the self-report and behavioural measures, endorsement of instrumental harm decreased trust, while endorsement of impartial beneficence increased trust. These results show how support for different ethical principles can impact trust in leaders, and inform effective public communication during times of global crisis. Protocol Registration Statement: The Stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 13 November 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13247315.v1.

BackgroundSocial distancing has been implemented by many countries to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding public support for this policy calls for effective and efficient methods of monitoring public opinion on social distancing. Twitter analysis has been suggested as a cheaper and faster-responding alternative to traditional survey methods. The current empirical evidence is mixed in terms of the correspondence between the two methods.ObjectiveWe aim to compare the two methods in the context of monitoring the Dutch public's opinion on social distancing. For this comparison, we quantified the temporal and spatial variations in public opinion and their sensitivities to critical events using data from both Dutch Twitter users and respondents from a longitudinal survey.MethodsA longitudinal survey on a representative Dutch sample (n= 1,200) was conducted between July and November 2020 to measure opinions on social distancing weekly. From the same period, near 100,000 Dutch tweets were categorized as supporting or rejecting social distancing based on a model trained with annotated data. Average stances for the 12 Dutch provinces and over the 20 weeks were computed from the two data sources and were compared through visualizations and statistical analyses.ResultsBoth data sources suggested strong support for social distancing, but public opinion was much more varied among tweets than survey responses. Both data sources showed an increase in public support for social distancing over time, and a strong temporal correspondence between them was found for most of the provinces. In addition, the survey but not Twitter data revealed structured differences among the 12 provinces, while the two data sources did not correspond much spatially. Finally, stances estimated from tweets were more sensitive to critical events happened during the study period.ConclusionsOur findings indicate consistencies between Twitter data analysis and survey methods in describing the overall stance on social distancing and temporal trends. The lack of spatial correspondence may imply limitations in the data collections and calls for surveys with larger regional samples. For public health management, Twitter analysis can be used to complement survey methods, especially for capturing public's reactivities to critical events amid the current pandemic.

Research on the nature and origins of human motivation has addressed the role of rewards in learning and behaviour. Gamification finds its raison d'être in being able to leverage motivational theories, to foster motivation in users through the use of game elements. One of the main criticisms moved to the use of gamification for learning purposes is related to the one-size-fits-all approach that tends to characterize many gamified applications. In this paper we explore the possibilities that can arise from the convergence of Self-Determination Theory principles and machine learning, to improve the efficacy of gamification reward systems.

The original BOID [5] is a cognitive architecture that unifies Belief, Obligation, Intention and Desire rules to calculate which actions should an agent undertake next. In the current paper, we adapt the original BOID with an aim to model autonomous agency. The new BOID* architecture is able to capture anticipation that we believe to be one of the hallmarks of autonomous agency. We focus on developing algorithms for anticipatory reasoning through a new BOID* goal deliberation component. The key method that BOID* introduces is abductive reasoning as a way to represent motivational attitudes, such as desires and obligations. As a result of deliberation via abduction, BOID* specifies intention revision procedures that connect motivational and informational attitudes. The BOID* is a part of the project to build autonomous AI models that make explicit the reasoning behind adopting future goals, prioritizing selected goals and forming intentions.

In het Hoger Onderwijs vragen we studenten om voortdurend samen te werken. Succes is echter niet gegarandeerd als we studenten in teams laten werken zonder verdere begeleiding. Er is meer voor nodig om studenten écht goed te laten samenwerken. Onderzocht is of de inzet van teamcoaching aan de hand van de Team Diagnostic Survey (TDS) het functioneren van studententeams en (dientengevolge) de behaalde resultaten bevordert. Deelnemers aan deze studie waren 20 studenten-teams in de Psychologie bachelorcursus “Intra- en intergroepsprocessen” aan de Universiteit Utrecht. Elk van de 20 studententeams is at random toegewezen aan de controle- of de experimentele conditie waarbij de experimentele groep teamcoaching ontving op basis van de TDS en de controlegroep teamcoaching ontving op basis van hun eigen vragen en behoeftes. Hoewel er geen significante verschillen tussen de twee condities zijn gevonden, is het patroon van de resultaten wel veelbelovend. De experimentele groep scoorde na de interventie hoger op saamhorigheid, teamidentificatie, samenwerking, teameffectiviteit en behaald eindcijfer dan de controlegroep. Deze resultaten suggereren dat het coachen van studententeams op basis van de TDS het teamfunctioneren en de teamprestaties ten goede zou kunnen komen en nodigen dan ook uit tot verder onderzoek.

Hundreds of studies have assessed variation in the degree to which people experience disgust toward substances associated with pathogens, but little is known about the mechanistic sources of this variation. The current investigation uses olfactory perception and threshold methods to test whether it is apparent at the cue-detection level, at the cue-interpretation level, or both. It further tests whether relations between disgust sensitivity and olfactory perception are specific to odors associated with pathogens. Two studies (N's = 119 and 160) of individuals sampled from a Dutch university each revealed that pathogen disgust sensitivity relates to valence perceptions of odors found in pathogen sources, but not to valence perceptions of odors not associated with pathogens, nor to intensity perceptions of odors of either type. Study 2, which also assessed olfactory thresholds via a three-alternative forced-choice staircase method, did not reveal a relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity and the ability to detect an odor associated with pathogens, nor an odor not associated with pathogens. In total, results are consistent with the idea that pathogen disgust sensitivity relates to how olfactory pathogen cues are interpreted after detection, but not necessarily to the ability to detect such cues.

Acting on one’s moral principles is not always easy. Upholding one’s moral beliefs may run counter to one’s social environment or situational demands. It may often cause people to remain silent on their convictions, while at the same time some may show the moral courage to speak out. How do people evaluate those who do stand up, and how does it affect their self-evaluations? In two experimental studies (Ns = 207 and 204), we investigated both types of evaluations. The studies demonstrate that people who failed to uphold their moral beliefs still had positive evaluations of others who showed moral courage. More specifically, pro-gay participants who went along with writing an anti-gay essay denouncing equal rights for sexual minorities had positive evaluations of another person who spoke up and refused this task. The failure to display moral courage had negative consequences for participants’ self-concepts. In Experiment 1, we show that pro-gay participants’ positive self-concepts were lowered after writing an anti-gay essay (vs. a pro-gay essay). In Experiment 2, we reveal that participants' positive self-concepts were lowered only when they were confronted with morally courageous behavior and their own failure to uphold their moral beliefs was visible to the experimenter.

People form coherent representations of goal-directed actions. Such agency experiences of intentional action are reflected by a shift in temporal perception: self-generated motor movements and subsequent sensory effects are perceived to occur closer together in time—a phenomenon termed intentional binding. Building on recent research suggesting that temporal binding occurs without intentionally performing actions, we further examined whether such perceptual compression occurs when motor action is fully absent. In three experiments, we used a novel sensory-based adaptation of the Libet clock paradigm to assess how a brief tactile sensation on the index finger and a resulting auditory stimulus perceptually bind together in time. Findings revealed robust temporal repulsion (instead of binding) between tactile sensation and auditory effect. Temporal repulsion was attenuated when participants could anticipate the identity and temporal onset (two crucial components of intentional action) of the tactile sensation. These findings are briefly discussed in the context of differences between intentional movement and anticipated bodily sensations in shaping action coherence and agentic experiences. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00221-021-06087-8.

During the first months of the corona crisis, people worldwide produced and shared thousands of uplifting (e.g., humorous, moving) media messages. The six studies reported here empirically tested the consolatory effects of viewing such positive media messages in the US, The Netherlands, and the UK. I compared the impact of humorous and moving (i.e., touching, heartwarming) messages, as they provide different kinds of well-being: hedonic versus eudaimonic. Studies 1–3 had correlational designs. Largely in line with the hedonic versus eudaimonic well-being framework, the results suggested that humorous messages lift people’s spirits by providing pleasure, while moving messages lift people’s spirits by providing realism, optimism, and by illustrating core human values. Studies 4–6 used a pre- and post-measure of negative and positive emotions. The results showed that viewing non-moving humorous messages significantly reduced negative emotions but did not increase positive emotions. Viewing non-humorous moving messages reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions in the US and UK, but not in The Netherlands. Finally, viewing messages that are both humorous and moving reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions in all samples, implying they are particularly valuable as mood-enhancers during crises. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Human habits are considered to be an important root of societal problems. The significance of habits has been demonstrated for a variety of behaviors in different domains, such as work, transportation, health, and ecology, suggesting that habits have a pervasive impact on human life. Studying and changing habits in societal context requires a broad view of behavior, which poses a challenge for applying basic models to complex human habits. We address the conceptualization and operationalization of habits in the current literature and note that claims about the role of habits in societal context rarely agree with the basic definition of habits as goal-independent behavior. We consider future directions that are important for making progress in the study of habit change in societal context.

Reverse correlation is an influential psychophysical paradigm that uses a participant’s responses to randomly varying images to build a classification image (CI), which is commonly interpreted as a visualization of the participant’s mental representation. It is unclear, however, how to statistically quantify the amount of signal present in CIs, which limits the interpretability of these images. In this article, we propose a novel metric, infoVal, which assesses informational value relative to a resampled random distribution and can be interpreted like a z score. In the first part, we define the infoVal metric and show, through simulations, that it adheres to typical Type I error rates under various task conditions (internal validity). In the second part, we show that the metric correlates with markers of data quality in empirical reverse-correlation data, such as the subjective recognizability, objective discriminability, and test–retest reliability of the CIs (convergent validity). In the final part, we demonstrate how the infoVal metric can be used to compare the informational value of reverse-correlation datasets, by comparing data acquired online with data acquired in a controlled lab environment. We recommend a new standard of good practice in which researchers assess the infoVal scores of reverse-correlation data in order to ensure that they do not read signal in CIs where no signal is present. The infoVal metric is implemented in the open-source rcicr R package, to facilitate its adoption. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.3758/s13428-019-01232-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In this manuscript, we introduce a theoretical model of climate radicalization that integrates social psychological theories of perceived unfairness with historical insights on radicalization to contribute to the knowledge of individuals’ processes of radicalization and non-radicalization in relation to climate change. We define climate radicalization as a process of growing willingness to pursue and/or support radical changes in society that are in conflict with or could pose a threat to the status quo or democratic legal order to reach climate goals. We describe how perceptions of unfairness can play a pivotal role in processes of climate change related radicalization. Without taking any position or judgment regarding climate concerns and associated actions, we suggest that although these behaviors drive many people to participate in peaceful climate protest, they may also lead others to radicalize into breaking the law to achieve their climate goals, possibly in violent ways. This process of climate radicalization, we argue, can be driven by people perceiving certain situations to be blatantly unfair. Specifically, we discuss how radical attitudes and behaviors can be products of perceived unfairness stemming from the past, the future, the immediate social environments of perceivers, as well as those that are spatially distant from them. We further argue that because radicalization processes are shaped by an interaction between individuals and movements, on the one hand, and societal actors and developments, on the other, they tend to develop in non-linear and dynamic ways. We therefore propose that climate radicalization is a (1) dynamic, contingent, and non-linear process, often of an escalating (and sometimes de-escalating) kind, (2) that develops over time, (3) through various interactions between individuals and their contexts, and (4) in which people and groups move back and forth from peaceful protest, through disobedient and unlawful methods, to violent actions. Implications, strengths, and limitations of our model are discussed.

Humans excel in instruction following to boost performance in unfamiliar situations. We can do so through so-called prepared reflexes: Abstract instructions are instantly translated into appropriate task rules in procedural working memory, after which imperative stimuli directly trigger their corresponding responses in a ballistic, reflex-like manner. But how much control do we have over these instructed task rules when their reflexes suddenly lose their relevance? Inspired by the phenomenon of directed forgetting in declarative working memory, we here tested across four experiments whether the presentation of (implicit or explicit) task cancellation cues results in the directed dismantling of recently instructed task rules. Our findings suggest that-even when cancelation cues are actively processed-such dismantling does not occur (Experiment 1-3) unless the no-longer relevant task rules are replaced by a new set of rules (Experiment 4). These findings and their implications are discussed in the broader context of action control and working memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Online businesses collect a wealth of data on customers, often without properly informing them. Increasingly, these data can be used for behavioral price discrimination. In this two-study article, we explore how consumers would respond if businesses were compelled to disclose their use of discriminatory behavioral pricing techniques. Using different disclosure frames, we examine the effects of disclosure on purchase intention and purchase probability. The findings indicate that specific disclosure frames affect purchase intentions. Furthermore, we find that a disclosure frame that is more in line with a consumer’s self-interest increases purchase intention. Specifically, the frame indirectly influences intention to purchase through its effect on the perception that the use of behavioral pricing information serves self-interest. In this way, our study draws attention to a potentially unanticipated effect of regulatory intervention. Implications for future research and legal policy are discussed, focused on the need to design and empirically test the effectiveness of disclosures online.