Geänderte Inhalte

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article ``The Cost of Collaboration: Why Joint Decision Making Exacerbates Rejection of Outside Information'' by J. A. Minson and J. S. Mueller in the 2012 issue.

G-I transfer denotes an increase in individual performance due to group interaction, for example, because of acquiring certain skills or knowledge from the other group members. Whereas such G-I transfer has been successfully shown for problem-solving tasks, evidence for G-I transfer on quantitative estimation tasks is scarce. We address this research gap with a focus on how often a group has to interact in order to fully exploit the benefit of this learning effect. Results from two experiments support the idea that a single group interaction is sufficient to induce a stable G-I transfer, which reduces group members’ metric error. Smaller metric errors indicate that people improved their representation of the correct upper and lower boundaries, or what range of values is plausible. In contrast to nominal groups, both members of continuously interacting groups and members of groups with only one initial interaction exhibited stable G-I transfer, and the size of this transfer did not significantly differ between the latter two conditions. Furthermore, we found evidence for differential weighting of group members’ individual contributions that goes beyond sheer individual capability gains under certain circumstances, namely in tasks with a population bias.

During discussions, people typically introduce more information supporting their preferences as compared to information conflicting with these preferences, and they also repeat the former information more often than the latter. Although this preference-consistent discussion bias has been shown across several studies, its consequences for subsequent decisions have largely escaped attention. In particular, it is unclear whether selectively  repeating  preference-consistent information increases the likelihood that the recipient decides in accordance with the speaker's preference. From a rational point of view, information repetitions constitute redundancy and, hence, should not affect the recipient's decision. By contrast, in two experiments we demonstrate that selectively repeating information in favor of a particular decision alternative changes preference ratings in favor of this alternative (Experiment 1) and makes a decision for this alternative more likely (Experiment 2). This result is shown for written discussion protocols (Experiment 1) and for face-to-face discussions with a confederate (Experiment 2).

Across three studies (total N = 793), we investigated the link between two fundamental dimensions of personality, agency and communion, and advice taking in quantity estimation tasks. We complemented the analyses of the individual studies with meta-analyses across all three studies in order to gain insight into the robustness of our core results. In line with our expectations, agency was associated with less advice taking, and this effect was mediated by individuals’ perceptions of their own competence. Contrary to what we expected, we did not find consistent evidence that communion systematically relates to advice taking. Analyses of judges’ initial accuracy further suggested that agentic judges’ lower willingness to heed advice was justified by greater initial accuracy as compared with their less agentic peers. Our data, thus, provide evidence of individual differences in advice taking and shed some light on the question which individuals are more inclined to heed advice than others.

Following up on a recent debate, we examined advice taking in dyads compared to individuals in a set of three studies (total N = 303 dyads and 194 individuals). Our first aim was to test the replicability of an important previous finding, namely that dyads heed advice less than individuals because they feel more confident in the accuracy of their initial judgments. Second, we aimed to explain dyads’ behavior based on three premises: first, that dyads understand that the added value of an outside opinion diminishes when the initial pre-advice judgment is made by two judges rather than one judge (given that the dyad members’ opinions are independent of each other); second, that they fail to recognize when the assumption of independence of opinions does not hold; and third, that the resistance to advice commonly observed in individuals persists in groups but is neither aggravated nor ameliorated by the group context. The results of our studies show consistently that previous findings on advice taking in dyads are replicable. They also support our hypothesis that groups exhibit a general tendency to heed advice less than individuals, irrespective of whether the accuracy of their initial judgments warrants this behavior. Finally, based on the three assumptions mentioned above, we were able to make accurate predictions about advice taking in dyads, prompting us to postulate a general model of advice taking in groups of arbitrary size.

A rational strategy to update and revise one’s uncertain beliefs is to take advice by other agents who are better informed. Adults routinely engage in such advice taking in systematic and selective ways depending on relevant characteristics such as reliability of advisors. The current study merged research in social and developmental psychology to examine whether children also adjust their initial judgment to varying degrees depending on the characteristics of their advisors. Participants aged 3 to 6 years played a game in which they made initial judgments, received advice, and subsequently made final judgments. They systematically revised their judgments in light of the advice, and they did so selectively as a function of advisor expertise. They made greater adjustments to their initial judgment when advised by an apparently knowledgeable informant. This suggests that the pattern of advice taking studied in social psychology has its roots in early development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

We investigate decision-making in the Judge--Advisor-System where one person, the ``judge'', wants to estimate the number of a certain entity and is given advice by another person. The question is how to combine the judge's initial estimate and that of the advisor in order to get the optimal expected outcome. A previous approach compared two frequently applied strategies, taking the average or choosing the better estimate. In most situations, averaging produced the better estimates. However, this approach neglected a third strategy that judges frequently use, namely a weighted mean of the judges' initial estimate and the advice. We compare the performance of averaging and choosing to weighting in a theoretical analysis. If the judge can, without error, detect ability differences between judge and advisor, a straight-forward calculation shows that weighting outperforms both of these strategies. More interestingly, after introducing errors in the perception of the ability differences, we show that such imperfect weighting may or may not be the optimal strategy. The relative performance of imperfect weighting compared to averaging or choosing depends on the size of the actual ability differences as well as the magnitude of the error. However, for a sizeable range of ability differences and errors, weighting is preferable to averaging and more so to choosing. Our analysis expands previous research by showing that weighting, even when imperfect, is an appropriate advice taking strategy and under which circumstances judges benefit most from applying it.

In contrast to the truncated view that replications have only a little to offer beyond what is already known, we suggest a broader understanding of replications: We argue that replications are better conceptualized as a process of conducting consecutive studies that increasingly consider alternative explanations, critical contingencies, and real-world relevance. To reflect this understanding, we collected and summarized the existing literature on replications and combined it into a comprehensive overall typology that simplifies and restructures existing approaches. The resulting typology depicts how multiple, hierarchically structured replication studies guide the integration of laboratory and field research and advance theory. It can be applied to (a) evaluate a theory's current status, (b) guide researchers' decisions, (c) analyze and argue for the necessity of certain types of replication studies, and (d) assess the added value of a replication study at a given state of knowledge. We conclude with practical recommendations for different protagonists in the field (e.g., authors, reviewers, editors, and funding agencies). Together, our comprehensive typology and the related recommendations will contribute to an enhanced replication culture in social psychology and to a stronger real-world impact of the discipline. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Although empirical research has investigated what we ideally seek in a romantic partner for decades, the crucial question of whether ideal partner preferences actually guide our mating decisions in real life has remained largely unanswered. One reason for this is the lack of designs that assess individuals’ ideal partner preferences before entering a relationship and then follow up on them over an extended period. In the Göttingen Mate Choice Study (GMCS), a preregistered, large-scale online study, we used such a naturalistic prospective design. We investigated partner preferences across 4 preference domains in a large sample of predominantly heterosexual singles (N = 763, aged 18–40 years) and tracked these individuals across a period of 5 months upon a possible transition into romantic relationships. Attesting to their predictive validity, partner preferences prospectively predicted the characteristics of later partners. This was equally true for both sexes, except for vitality-attractiveness where men’s preferences were more predictive of their later partners’ standing on this dimension than women’s. Self-perceived mate value did not moderate the preference-partner characteristics relations. Preferences proved to be relatively stable across the 5 months interval, yet were less stable for those who entered a relationship. Subgroup analyses using a newly developed indicator of preference adjustment toward (vs. away from) partner characteristics revealed that participants adjusted their preferences downward when partners fell short of initial preferences, but showed no consistent adjustment when partners exceeded them. Results and implications are discussed against the background of ongoing controversies in mate choice and romantic relationship research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

A growing body of research shows that individual differences in working memory capacity play a pivotal role for a large number of higher order cognitive tasks. Surprisingly, however, the impact of individual differences in working memory capacity on group performance has received little attention. In this conceptual article, we focus on three typical group tasks (group idea generation, group decision making, group judgment) and, for each task, provide an analysis of how individual differences in working memory capacity might affect group performance. Our key idea is that group interaction is a cognitively demanding task as group members have to continuously monitor the ongoing conversation, hold their ideas in memory, integrate the information put forth by others, and update their mental representations accordingly. Therefore, individual differences in working memory capacity are presumed to have a profound impact on how people process information during group interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Advice utilization during judgment and decision-making is an integral part of everyday life. The most stable finding in the literature on advice taking is that judges tend to place too much weight on their own judgments and do not utilize advice as much as they objectively should. This phenomenon is termed underutilization of advice. However, the opposite extreme, namely overutilization of advice, has largely been ignored so far. This dissertation provides first evidence for judges' inability to fully discount useless advice. Whereas advice from supposedly competent advisors was integrated to a high degree, judges failed to completely discount advice from supposedly computer generated random numbers that were said to have no validity whatsoever. The presented data further show that the overutilization of non-valid advice can be explained by a misperception of validity on the one hand and a combination of positive hypothesis testing and selective activation of target-relevant knowledge on the other.

When making judgments and decisions, people suffering from depression are often faced with opinions and advice from others (e.g., from their therapists) but it is unclear how their psychopathology alters the utilization of such information. This study is the first to examine whether depressed people are more or less susceptible to informational social influence. To this end, we employed the Judge–Advisor-System, which allows for a pure test of how people utilize information from others. We found that depressed participants had significantly higher advice taking values than non-depressed participants, which was mediated by self-esteem. A fine-grained analysis of these group differences revealed that depressed participants were more likely to revise their initial estimates after receiving advice than non-depressed people. Yet, once having decided to revise their estimates, depressed people did not weight advice more heavily. Theoretical implications concerning two qualitatively independent effects of depression on advice taking are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

Ausgewählte Kongressbeiträge (18. Workshop Psychologie der Arbeitssicherheit und Gesundheit 2014 in Dresden) zum Thema ``Physische und psychische Gesundheit bei der Arbeit'' werden dokumentiert. - Inhalt: (1) Birgit Smettan-Rehnolt: Gefährdungsbeurteilung an Arbeitsplätzen in der öffentlichen Verwaltung: Was belastet die Beschäftigten in für die Menschen so wichtigen Institutionen wie Sozialämtern und Leitstellen für Feuerwehr und Rettungsdienst. (2) Corinna Wiegratz und Frank Stracke-Rehms: Der Einsatz des Screening-Instruments zur Bewertung und Gestaltung menschengerechter Arbeit (SIGMA) als Gruppenverfahren - erste Anwendungserfahrungen. (3) Nicki Marcquardt, Kristian Gerstmeyer, Christion Treffenstädt und Ricarda Gades-Büttrich: Mentale Beanspruchung bei Ärzten und kritische OP-Ereignissee. (4) Hiltraud Grzech-Sukalo und Kerstin Hänecke: Guten Morgen! Einfluss von Wegzeiten und Arbeitszeiten auf Gesundheit, Schlaf und Freizeit bei Auszubildenden im Bäckereifachgewerbe. (5) Jana Greubel, Anna Arlinghaus und Friedhelm Nachreiner: Variable Arbeitszeiten und Arbeitsunfälle. (6) Peter Görg, Mike Hammes und Rainer Wieland: Zwioschenergebnisse des Projekts ``Regionale Unterschiede bei Arbeitsunfällen in Betrieben''.

In the present cross-cultural study, the mental representations of civil courage and helping behavior are compared. It is investigated whether prosocial behavior is designated as civil courage if the actor has to expect negative social consequences, whereas the judgment of helping behavior is not related to the anticipated negative social consequences. Subjects from Germany and the Ukraine received four scenarios in which an actor showed pro-social behavior. This person had to expect either high or low negative social consequences. For each scenario, the participants assessed the behavior described regarding its extent of civil courage and helping behavior. As expected, the manipulation of anticipated negative social consequences only affected the ratings of civil courage but not the ratings of helping behavior.

Es werden die psychologischen Rahmenbedingungen für ein erfolgreiches Ideenmanagement (IM) in Unternehmen dargestellt. Dabei werden folgende Punkte behandelt: (1) Firmenphilosophie und das Selbstverständnis der Beteiligten als Grundlage eines erfolgreichen IM (kontinuierliche Reflexion, neue Anforderungsprofile der Führungskräfte und der Mitarbeiter, Konsequenzen für die Einstellung neuer Mitarbeiter), (2) Mitarbeiterführung als Schlüssel für erfolgreiches IM (wichtige Führungsprinzipien, Schulungsmaßnahmen), (3) ``Center-of Excellence-Kulturen'' zur Förderung des IM (etwa Kommunikationskulturen, Wertschöpfungskultur, Kreativkultur, Problemlösekultur). Abschließend wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob ein erfolgreiches IM planbar ist.

In einem Interview, das U. Nuber mit dem Kieler Psychologen S. Schulz-Hardt führte, werden einige Aspekte des Themas ``Sinn des Lebens'' bzw. ``Sinnlosigkeit'' besprochen. Eingegangen wird in diesem Zusammenhang unter anderem auf (1) die Definition von Sinn (formale und inhaltliche Aspekte), (2) die Veränderung von Sinninhalten im Lauf des Lebens durch sich wandelnde persönliche Werte sowie (3) mögliche Beiträge einer naturwissenschaftlichen Psychologie zu diesem Thema. Veranschaulicht wird die Sinnfrage anhand von konkreten Beispielen (Sinn im Arbeitsleben, Steuermoral, Bewältigung der Vergangenheit in Ostdeutschland). Es wird die Auffassung vertreten, dass sich die Sinnfrage individuell gerade im Bereich des Alltags lösen lässt.