Christian Happ

Managing information overload in virtual teams: Effects of a structured online team adaptation on cognition and performance

Information overload (IO) indicates the exchange of too much low-quality information in virtual teams. When being overloaded with information, teams need to adapt and to change communication behaviour. This study introduces and tests a structured online team adaptation (STROTA) procedure that enables virtual teams to reduce IO by improving their team mental model quality. STROTA, built from team adaptation models, is a moderated intervention consisting of three stages: (1) individual situation awareness, (2) team situation awareness, and (3) plan formulation. STROTA was tested in the context of an experimental problem-solving task. Participants (N = 363) worked in virtual teams of three and were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: no STROTA, incomplete STROTA (step 1, steps 1–2), and complete STROTA (steps 1–2–3). We found teams that followed a complete STROTA procedure experienced lessened IO over time. Teams with complete STROTA showed the largest development of TMM immediately after STROTA. Finally, multilevel mediation analyses showed that TMM are mediators that explain the influence of STROTA on IO.

Bringing empathy into play: on the effects of empathy in violent and nonviolent video games

While violent media has adverse effects on cognition, emotion and behavior, prosocial content promotes these variables in a prosocial way. Greater individual levels of empathy as well as increasing the level of empathy in media content typically foster prosocial behavior and reduce aggression. Two experiments replicated game content findings, and also showed that inducing empathy prior to a video game had a positive influence on behavior. However, under certain circumstances, inducing empathy before playing a violent video game may even have negative effects on behavior. As empathy is a common tool in prevention programs, the implications of these findings are discussed.

Trick with treat - Reciprocity increases the willingness to communicate personal data

Information security is a significant challenge for information and communication technologies (ICT). This includes withstanding attempts of social engineering aimed at manipulating people into divulging confidential information. However, many users are lacking awareness of the risks involved. In a field survey that tested reciprocal behavior in social interactions, 1208 participants were asked to reveal their personal password. In line with the social norm of reciprocity, more than one third of the participants were willing to do so when they received a small incentive. Elicitation was even more successful when the incentive was given right before asking for the password. The results, including moderating factors (e.g., age, gender), are discussed in the light of security awareness of ICT users and the mechanisms of psychological persuasion. Information security is a challenge for information and communication technologies.Many users are lacking the awareness of the risk of social engineering strategies.More than one third of participants were willing to reveal personal passwords.Elicitation was more successful when a small incentive (i.e., chocolate) was given.

German version of the intuitive eating scale: Psychometric evaluation and application to an eating disordered population

Intuitive eating has been described to represent an adaptive eating behaviour that is characterised by eating in response to physiological hunger and satiety cues, rather than situational and emotional stimuli. The Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) has been developed to measure such attitudes and behaviours on four subscales: unconditional permission to eat (UPE), eating for physical rather than emotional reasons (EPR), reliance on internal hunger and satiety cues (RHSC), and body-food choice congruence (B-FCC). The present study aimed at validating the psychometric properties of the German translation of the IES-2 in a large German-speaking sample. A second objective was to assess levels of intuitive eating in participants with an eating disorder diagnosis (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating disorder). The proposed factor structure of the IES-2 could be confirmed for the German translation of the questionnaire. The total score and most subscale scores were negatively related to eating disorder symptomatology, problems in appetite and emotional awareness, body dissatisfaction, and self-objectification. Women with eating disorders had significantly lower values on all IES-2 subscale scores and the total score than women without an eating disorder diagnosis. Women with a binge eating disorder (BED) diagnosis had higher scores on the UPE subscale compared to participants with anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN), and those diagnosed with AN had higher scores on the EPR subscale than individuals with BN or BED. We conclude that the German IES-2 constitutes a useful self-report instrument for the assessment of intuitive eating in German-speaking samples. Further studies are warranted to evaluate psychometric properties of the IES-2 in different samples, and to investigate its application in a clinical setting.

Quality of Work: Validation of a New Instrument in Three Languages

Introduction and objective: A new instrument to measure quality of work was developed in three languages (German, French and Luxembourgish) and validated in a study of employees working in Luxembourg. Methods and results: A representative sample (n = 1529) was taken and exploratory factor analysis revealed a six-factor solution for the 21-item instrument (satisfaction and respect, mobbing, mental strain at work, cooperation, communication and feedback, and appraisal). Reliability analysis showed satisfying reliability for all six factors and the total questionnaire. In order to examine the construct validity of the new instrument, regression analyses were conducted to test whether the instrument predicted work characteristics’ influence on three components of well-being—burnout, psychological stress and maladaptive coping behaviors. Conclusion: The present validation offers a trilingual inventory for measuring quality of work that may be used, for example, as an assessment tool or for testing the effectiveness of interventions.

The E in Media is for Empathy

The authors provide an in-depth analysis of the current research on empathy in violent media, and video games in particular. They argue that little attention has been paid to the role of empathy in the media context so far. Happ and Melzer present two experimental studies that test the effects of empathy induction before playing a video game on players’ perception and behavior. Study 1 aims at exploring the role of empathy as a moderator in a prosocial video game and a violent video game. Study 2 tests the differential effects of feeling empathy with violent video game characters. Inducing empathy in video games turns out to be beneficial, but it may also have deleterious consequences, depending on whom one feel empathy for.

‘Dear Researcher, Gamers, Parents, and Teachers …’

In the final chapter, Happ and Melzer discuss the results of their experimental studies more broadly and give an outlook for future research. As a summary, practical applications of the findings are discussed. Results indicate that increasing empathy might not always be the appropriate way to reduce aggressive behavior. So far, taking the perspective of victims of violence and examining one’s feelings has proven to be an important aspect of successful violence prevention programs. Based on the present results, however, caution in handling empathy inductions is advised. These findings are more specifically addressed to gamers, teachers, and parents, and need to be taken into account when designing and implementing future media literacy programs or violence prevention trainings.

Of Empathy and Media Content: Bringing Together Two Important Areas of Research

Happ and Melzer introduce the two major components of their research. Following the detailed description of the multifaceted construct of empathy, the chapter contains an overview on findings from current research on media effects with a particular emphasis on video games. Numerous studies document the negative effects of violent media on many variables explained by different theoretical models. In addition to violent media content, however, other risk and resilience factors (e.g., moral issues) are also likely to moderate the effects of violent video games. The authors present empathy as a potential moderator for behavior in social situations. The chapter ends with a critical evaluation of current findings, stressing the importance of analyzing empathy and its role for the effects of media content.

What Empathy Does to the Video Gamer

Happ and Melzer follow up on the results obtained in Study 1 and Study 2 by presenting Study 3 in which they manipulate the moral valence of a violent video game character (good vs. evil). This leads to a more general way of interpreting the role of empathy when using media. Empathy has to be seen as a temporary protective factor against some of the negative video games effects. When playing a morally bad character in a violent video game, however, empathy induction even increases aggressive cognitions and antisocial behavior. These complex moderating effects of empathy are discussed in the light of existing and novel theoretical models of media effects.