Iris K. Schneider

Weighty Matters Importance Literally Feels Heavy

Previous work showed that concrete experiences of weight influence people’s judgments of how important certain issues are. In line with an embodied simulation account but contrary to a metaphor-enriched perspective, this work shows that perceived importance of an object influences perceptions of weight. Two studies manipulated information about a book’s importance, after which, participants estimated its weight. Importance information caused participants to perceive the book to be heavier. This was not merely a semantic association, because weight perceptions were affected only when participants physically held the book. Furthermore, importance information influenced weight perceptions but not perceptions of monetary value. These findings extend previous research by showing that the activation direction from weight to importance can be reversed, thus suggesting that the connection between importance and weight goes beyond metaphorical mappings. Implications for the debate on interpretation of findings on the interplay between bodily states and abstract information are discussed.

In doubt and disorderly: Ambivalence promotes compensatory perceptions of order.

Ambivalence is a presumably unpleasant experience, and coming to terms with it is an intricate part of human existence. It is argued that ambivalent attitude holders cope with their ambivalence through compensatory perceptions of order. We first show that ambivalence leads to an increase in (visual) perceptions of order (Study 1). In Study 2 we conceptually replicate this finding by showing that ambivalence also increases belief in conspiracy theories, a cognitive form of order perception. Furthermore, this effect is mediated by the negative emotions that are elicited by ambivalence. In Study 3 we show that increased need for order is driving these effects: Affirmations of order cancel out the effect of ambivalence on perceptions of order. Theoretical as well as societal implications are discussed.

Embodied Terror Management Interpersonal Touch Alleviates Existential Concerns Among Individuals With Low Self-Esteem

Individuals with low (rather than high) self-esteem often struggle with existential concerns. In the present research, we examined whether these existential concerns may be alleviated by seemingly trivial experiences of both real and simulated interpersonal touch. A brief touch on the shoulder by a female experimenter led individuals with low self-esteem to experience less death anxiety (Study 1) and more social connectedness after a death reminder (Study 2). Reminding individuals with low self-esteem of death increased their desire for touch, as indicated by higher value estimates of a teddy bear, a toy animal that simulates interpersonal touch (Study 3). Finally, holding a teddy bear (vs. a cardboard box) led individuals with low self-esteem to respond to a death reminder with less defensive ethnocentrism (Study 4). Individuals with high self-esteem were unaffected by touch (Studies 1–4). These findings highlight the existential significance of embodied touch experiences, particularly for individuals with low self-esteem.

One Way and the Other: The Bidirectional Relationship Between Ambivalence and Body Movement

Prior research exploring the relationship between evaluations and body movements has focused on one-sided evaluations. However, people regularly encounter objects or situations about which they simultaneously hold both positive and negative views, which results in the experience of ambivalence. Such experiences are often described in physical terms: For example, people say they are “wavering” between two sides of an issue or are “torn.” Building on this observation, we designed two studies to explore the relationship between the experience of ambivalence and side-to-side movement, or wavering. In Study 1, we used a Wii Balance Board to measure movement and found that people who are experiencing ambivalence move from side to side more than people who are not experiencing ambivalence. In Study 2, we induced body movement to explore the reverse relationship and found that when people are made to move from side to side, their experiences of ambivalence are enhanced.

The path of ambivalence: tracing the pull of opposing evaluations using mouse trajectories

Ambivalence refers to a psychological conflict between opposing evaluations, often experienced as being torn between alternatives. This dynamic aspect of ambivalence is hard to capture with outcome-focused measures, such as response times or self-report. To gain more insight into ambivalence as it unfolds, the current work uses an embodied measure of pull, drawing on research in dynamic systems. In three studies, using different materials, we tracked people’s mouse movements as they chose between negative and positive evaluations of attitude objects. When participants evaluated ambivalent attitude objects, their mouse trajectories showed more pull of the non-chosen evaluative option than when they evaluated univalent attitude objects, revealing that participants were literally torn between the two opposing evaluations. We address the relationship of this dynamic measure to response time and self-reports of ambivalence and discuss implications and avenues for future research.

Effects of Trait Self-Control on Response Conflict About Healthy and Unhealthy Food.

Self-control leads to positive life outcomes, but it is poorly understood. While previous research has focused on self-control failure, self-control success remains unexplored. The current studies aim to shed more light on the mechanisms of self-control by focusing on the resolution of response conflict as a key component in self-control success. Trait self-control was measured, and participants reported on the magnitude of response conflict they experienced about healthy and unhealthy foods in Study 1 (N = 146; Mage  = 33.03; 59 females, 83 males, 4 unknown). The response conflict process was assessed in Study 2 (N = 118; Mage  = 21.45; 68 females, 41 males, 9 unknown). Outcomes showed that self-reported evaluative response conflict about food items was smaller for people high in trait self-control. Study 2 revealed that higher trait self-control predicted faster resolution of self-control conflict, and an earlier peak of the response conflict. Taken together, these results provide insight into what makes people with high trait self-control successful, namely, how they handle response conflict. Implications for self-control theories and future directions are discussed.

Telling Things Apart The Distance Between Response Keys Influences Categorization Times

People use spatial distance to talk and think about differences between concepts, and it has been argued that using space to think about different categories provides a scaffold for the categorization process. In the current study, we investigated the possibility that the distance between response keys can influence categorization times in binary classification tasks. In line with the hypothesis that distance between response keys can facilitate response selection in a key-press version of the Stroop task, our results showed that responses on incongruent Stroop trials were significantly facilitated when participants performed the Stroop task with response keys located far apart, compared with when they performed the task with response keys located close together. These results support the idea that the spatial structuring of response options facilitates categorizations that require cognitive effort, and that people can incorporate environmental structures such as spatial distance in their thought processes. Keeping your hands apart might actually help to keep things apart in your mind.

Let's not be indifferent about neutrality: Neutral ratings in the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) mask mixed affective responses.

The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is a picture set used by researchers to select pictures that have been prerated on valence. Researchers rely on the ratings in the IAPS to accurately reflect the degree to which the pictures elicit affective responses. Here we show that this may not always be a safe assumption. More specifically, the scale used to measure valence in the IAPS ranges from positive to negative, implying that positive and negative feelings are end-points of the same construct. This makes interpretation of midpoint, or neutral ratings, especially problematic because it is impossible to tell whether these ratings are the result of neutral, or of mixed feelings. In other words, neutral ratings may not be as neutral as researchers assume them to be. Investigating this, in this work we show that pictures that seem neutral according to the valence ratings in the IAPS indeed vary in levels of ambivalence they elicit. Furthermore, the experience of ambivalence in response to these pictures is predictive of the arousal that people report feeling when viewing these pictures. These findings are of particular importance because neutrality differs from ambivalence in its specific psychological consequences, and by relying on seemingly neutral valance ratings, researchers may unwillingly introduce these consequences into their research design, undermining their level of experimental control. (PsycINFO Database Record

Justify your alpha

In response to recommendations to redefine statistical significance to P ≤ 0.005, we propose that researchers should transparently report and justify all choices they make when designing a study, including the alpha level.

What's in and what's out in branding? A novel articulation effect for brand names

The present approach exploits the biomechanical connection between articulation and ingestion-related mouth movements to introduce a novel psychological principle of brand name design. We constructed brand names for diverse products with consonantal stricture spots either from the front to the rear of the mouth, thus inwards (e.g., BODIKA), or from the rear to the front, thus outwards (e.g., KODIBA). These muscle dynamics resemble the oral kinematics during either ingestion (inwards), which feels positive, or expectoration (outwards), which feels negative. In 7 experiments (total N = 1261), participants liked products with inward names more than products with outward names (Experiment 1), reported higher purchase intentions (Experiment 2), and higher willingness-to-pay (Experiments 3a–3c, 4, 5), with the price gain amounting to 4–13% of the average estimated product value. These effects occurred across English and German language, under silent reading, for both edible and non-edible products, and even in the presence of a much stronger price determinant, namely fair-trade production (Experiment 5).