Fenja Ziegler

Two routes to perspective: Simulation and rule-use as approaches to mentalizing

We review evidence relating to childrens ability to acknowledge false beliefs within a simulation account according to which our focus is set by default to the world as we know it: hence, our current beliefs assume salience over beliefs that do not fall into this category. The model proposes that the ease with which we imaginatively shift from this default depends on the salience of our current belief, relative to the salience of the belief that is being simulated. However, children do use a rule-based approach for mentalizing in some contexts, which has the advantage of protecting them from the salience of their own belief. Rule-based mentalizing judgements might be faster, cognitively easier and less prone to error, relative to simulation-based judgements that are much influenced by salience. We propose that although simulation is primary, rule-based approaches develop as a shortcut; we thus grow from individuals capable of using only simulation into individuals capable of both techniques.

Decisions for others become less impulsive the further away they are on the family tree

Background People tend to prefer a smaller immediate reward to a larger but delayed reward. Although this discounting of future rewards is often associated with impulsivity, it is not necessarily irrational. Instead it has been suggested that it reflects the decision maker’s greater interest in the ‘me now’ than the ‘me in 10 years’, such that the concern for our future self is about the same as for someone else who is close to us. Methodology/Principal Findings To investigate this we used a delay-discounting task to compare discount functions for choices that people would make for themselves against decisions that they think that other people should make, e.g. to accept

Predicting Smartphone Operating System from Personality and Individual Differences

500 now or

Toward a Psychology of Surrogate Decision Making

1000 next week. The psychological distance of the hypothetical beneficiaries was manipulated in terms of the genetic coefficient of relatedness ranging from zero (e.g. a stranger, or unrelated close friend), .125 (e.g. a cousin), .25 (e.g. a nephew or niece), to .5 (parent or sibling). Conclusions/Significance The observed discount functions were steeper (i.e. more impulsive) for choices in which the decision-maker was the beneficiary than for all other beneficiaries. Impulsiveness of decisions declined systematically with the distance of the beneficiary from the decision-maker. The data are discussed with reference to the implusivity and interpersonal empathy gaps in decision-making.

Who’s been framed? Framing effects are reduced in financial gambles made for others

Android and iPhone devices account for over 90 percent of all smartphones sold worldwide. Despite being very similar in functionality, current discourse and marketing campaigns suggest that key individual differences exist between users of these two devices; however, this has never been investigated empirically. This is surprising, as smartphones continue to gain momentum across a variety of research disciplines. In this article, we consider if individual differences exist between these two distinct groups. In comparison to Android users, we found that iPhone owners are more likely to be female, younger, and increasingly concerned about their smartphone being viewed as a status object. Key differences in personality were also observed with iPhone users displaying lower levels of Honesty-Humility and higher levels of emotionality. Following this analysis, we were also able to build and test a model that predicted smartphone ownership at above chance level based on these individual differences. In line with extended self-theory, the type of smartphone owned provides some valuable information about its owner. These findings have implications for the increasing use of smartphones within research particularly for those working within Computational Social Science and PsychoInformatics, where data are typically collected from devices and applications running a single smartphone operating system.

The Technology Integration Model (TIM). Predicting the continued use of technology

In everyday life, many of the decisions that we make are made on behalf of other people. A growing body of research suggests that we often, but not always, make different decisions on behalf of other people than the other person would choose. This is problematic in the practical case of legally designated surrogate decision makers, who may not meet the substituted judgment standard. Here, we review evidence from studies of surrogate decision making and examine the extent to which surrogate decision making accurately predicts the recipient’s wishes, or if it is an incomplete or distorted application of the surrogate’s own decision-making processes. We find no existing domain-general model of surrogate decision making. We propose a framework by which surrogate decision making can be assessed and a novel domain-general theory as a unifying explanatory concept for surrogate decisions.

Stepping into someone else's shoes: Children create spatial mental models from the protagonist's point of view

BackgroundDecisions made on behalf of other people are sometimes more rational than those made for oneself. In this study we used a monetary gambling task to ask if the framing effect in decision-making is reduced in surrogate decision-making.MethodsParticipants made a series of choices between a predetermined sure option and a risky gambling option of winning a proportion of an initial stake. Trials were presented as either a gain or a loss relative to that initial stake. In half of the trials participants made choices to earn money for themselves and in the other half they earned money for another participant. Framing effects were measured as risk seeking in loss frames and risk aversion in gain frames.ResultsSignificant framing effects were observed both in trials in which participants earned money for themselves and those in which they earned money for another person; however, these framing effects were significantly reduced when making decisions for another person. It appears that the reduced emotional involvement when the decision-maker is not affected by the outcome of the decision thus lessens the framing effect without eradicating it altogether.ConclusionsThis suggests that the deviation from rational choices in decision-making can be significantly reduced when the emotional impact on the decision maker is lessened. These results are discussed in relation to Somatic Distortion Theory.

Surrogate utility estimation by long-term partners and unfamiliar dyads

The human-computer relationship is often convoluted and despite decades of progress, many relationships relating to continued use are unclear and poorly defined. This may be due to a lack of interdisciplinary collaboration, especially from a theoretical standpoint between computer science and psychology. Following a review of existing theories that attempt to explain continued technology use, we developed the Technology Integration Model (TIM). In sum, the main objective of TIM is to outline the processes behind continued technology use in an individuals everyday life. Here we present the model alongside a description of its scope and the relationships between constructs. This can help generate research questions relating to technology use while simultaneously addressing many previous shortcomings of existing models. As a unifying theory, TIM can quickly be adopted by researchers and developers when designing and implementing new technologies.

How does narrative cue children's perspective taking?

We know very little about childrens ability to create complex mental models from verbal descriptions. This paucity might be explained by the difficulty of creating paradigms that would test analogous skills in this domain in children and adults. In two experiments we explored young childrens ability to take the perspective of a character central to a described scene and to dynamically update object relations when the character moves. In Experiment 1, children were found to take the characters perspective when they learned the layout of objects in a real-life model. In Experiment 2 children learned the layout from text and gave responses to object location prompts in a computer-based task measuring response times on a touch screen. In line with predictions from adult spatial framework theory (Bryant, Tversky, & Franklin, 1992), children recalled objects fastest and more accurately that were placed in front or behind the character, and slowest for objects placed left or right. Based on a novel methodology, these findings reveal that children take an internal perspective on a described scene, which differs from the perspective they learned the layout from, indicating that at a young age children form rich, dynamic mental models of described scenes.

How Do Young Children Process Beliefs About Beliefs?: Evidence from Response Latency

To what extent are people able to make predictions about other peoples preferences and values?We report two experiments that present a novel method assessing some of the basic processes in surrogate decision-making, namely surrogate-utility estimation. In each experiment participants formed dyads who were asked to assign utilities to health related items and commodity items, and to predict their partners utility judgments for the same items. In experiment one we showed that older adults in long-term relationships were able to accurately predict their partners wishes. In experiment two we showed that younger adults who were relatively unfamiliar with one another were also able to predict other peoples wishes. Crucially we demonstrated that these judgments were accurate even after partialling out each participants own preferences indicating that in order to make surrogate utility estimations people engage in perspective-taking rather than simple anchoring and adjustment, suggesting that utility estimation is not the cause of inaccuracy in surrogate decision-making. The data and implications are discussed with respect to theories of surrogate decision-making.