Mario Gollwitzer

Expectancies as core features of mental disorders.

Purpose of review Expectancies are core features of mental disorders, and change in expectations is therefore one of the core mechanisms of treatment in psychiatry. We aim to improve our understanding of expectancies by summarizing factors that contribute to their development, persistence, and modification. We pay particular attention to the issue of persistence of expectancies despite experiences that contradict them. Recent findings Based on recent research findings, we propose a new model for expectation persistence and expectation change. When expectations are established, effects are evident in neural and other biological systems, for example, via anticipatory reactions, different biological reactions to expected versus unexpected stimuli, etc. Psychological ‘immunization’ and ‘assimilation’, implicit self-confirming processes, and stability of biological processes help us to better understand why expectancies persist even in the presence of expectation violations. Summary Learning theory, attentional processes, social influences, and biological determinants contribute to the development, persistence, and modification of expectancies. Psychological interventions should focus on optimizing expectation violation to achieve optimal treatment outcome and to avoid treatment failures.

Get the Message Punishment Is Satisfying If the Transgressor Responds to Its Communicative Intent

Results from three studies demonstrate that victims’ justice-related satisfaction with punishment is influenced by the kind of feedback they receive from offenders after punishment. In contrast to previous studies that found a discrepancy between anticipated and experienced satisfaction from punishment (Carlsmith, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2008), participants were able to accurately predict their satisfaction when made aware of the presence or absence of offender feedback acknowledging the victim’s intent to punish. Results also indicate that victims were most satisfied when offender feedback not only acknowledged the victim’s intent to punish but also indicated a positive moral change in the offender’s attitude toward wrongdoing. These findings indicate that punishment per se is neither satisfying nor dissatisfying but that it is crucial to take its communicative functions and its effects on the offender into account. Implications for psychological and philosophical theories on punishment motives as well as implications for justice procedures are discussed.

Sensibilität für Ungerechtigkeit

Zusammenfassung. Menschen unterscheiden sich in ihrer Sensibilitat fur Ungerechtigkeit. Diese Unterschiede sind stabil und lassen sich uber einzelne Falle von Ungerechtigkeit hinweg generalisieren. Ungerechtigkeitssensibilitat gliedert sich in vier Facetten: Opfersensibilitat, Beobachtersensibilitat, Nutzniesersensibilitat und Tatersensibilitat. Diese Facetten korrelieren systematisch untereinander. Wir stellen Untersuchungen vor, die Zusammenhange der Facetten mit egoistischen und prosozialen Dispositionen und mit egoistischem und prosozialem Verhalten in experimentellen Spielen sowie mit Zivilcourage aufzeigen. In diesen Untersuchungen lassen sich die Facetten klar differenzieren. Wahrend Beobachter-, Nutznieser- und Tatersensibilitat in einem genuinen Bedurfnis nach Gerechtigkeit zu wurzeln scheinen, beinhaltet Opfersensibilitat auch eine selbstbezogene Sorge, ausgebeutet zu werden. Vermittelnde Emotionen differenzieren weiterhin zwischen Beobachter- und Nutzniesersensibilitat: Beobachtersensibilitat f...

Proposal of a Nonlinear Interaction of Person and Situation (NIPS) model

Marshall and Brown (2006) proposed a Traits as Situational Sensitivities (TASS) Model, which implies a systematic person × situation interaction. We review this model and show that it suffers from several limitations. We extend and modify the model in order to obtain a symmetric pattern of levels and effects for both person and situation factors. Our suggestions result in a general Nonlinear Interaction of Person and Situation (NIPS) Model. The NIPS model bears striking similarities to the Rasch model. Based on the symmetric nature of the NIPS model, we generalize the concept of weak and strong situations to individuals and propose the concepts of weak and strong persons. Finally, we discuss psychological mechanisms that might explain the NIPS pattern and offer ideas for future research.

Vicarious Revenge and the Death of Osama bin Laden

Three hypotheses were derived from research on vicarious revenge and tested in the context of the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011. In line with the notion that revenge aims at delivering a message (the “message hypothesis”), Study 1 shows that Americans’ vengeful desires in the aftermath of 9/11 predicted a sense of justice achieved after bin Laden’s death, and that this effect was mediated by perceptions that his assassination sent a message to the perpetrators to not “mess” with the United States. In line with the “blood lust hypothesis,” his assassination also sparked a desire to take further revenge and to continue the “war on terror.” Finally, in line with the “intent hypothesis,” Study 2 shows that Americans (but not Pakistanis or Germans) considered the fact that bin Laden was killed intentionally more satisfactory than the possibility of bin Laden being killed accidentally (e.g., in an airplane crash).

Victim Sensitivity and the Accuracy of Social Judgments

Recent theorizing on the relation between victim sensitivity and unethical behavior predicts that victim sensitivity is related to an asymmetrical focus on cues associated with untrustworthiness compared to cues associated with trustworthiness. This hypothesis and its consequences for the accuracy of social predictions are investigated in this article. In Study 1, participants rated the trustworthiness of 35 computer-animated faces that differed in their emotional expression. People high in victim sensitivity rated neutral and hostile faces more untrustworthy than people low in victim sensitivity, whereas no such effect was found for friendly faces. In Study 2, participants predicted the cooperativeness of 56 targets on the basis of minimal information. The accuracy of predictions was negatively related to victim sensitivity, and people high in victim sensitivity systematically underestimated targets’ cooperativeness. Thus, the asymmetrical focus on untrustworthiness cues among victim-sensitive individuals seems to impair rather than improve their social judgments.

Latent-Class-Analysis

Personen unterscheiden sich hinsichtlich einer Vielzahl von Eigenschaften, zum Beispiel ihres Geschlechts, ihrer Korpergrose, oder ihres Temperaments: Manche Menschen sind eher extravertiert, andere eher introvertiert. Solche Personvariablen sind zum einen entweder direkt beobachtbar (Geschlecht, Korpergrose) oder nur indirekt uber Indikatorvariablen zu erschliesen (Extraversion bzw. Introversion). Zum anderen sind Personvariablen entweder dimensional oder kategorial definiert. Die Korpergrose z.B. ist eine dimensionale Personvariable: Je groser eine Person ist, desto hoher ist ihr »Wert« auf dem jeweiligen Messinstrument (z.B. einem Zentimetermas), wobei zwischen zwei Werten unendlich viele mogliche Werte liegen konnen. Das Geschlecht hingegen ist eine kategoriale Personvariable: Man ist entweder mannlich oder weiblich. Im Falle kategorialer Variablen gibt es lediglich so viele Werte wie Kategorien; Zwischenwerte, d.h. graduelle Unterschiede zwischen Werten, gibt es hier nicht.

Social Identity Threat Motivates Science-Discrediting Online Comments

Experiencing social identity threat from scientific findings can lead people to cognitively devalue the respective findings. Three studies examined whether potentially threatening scientific findings motivate group members to take action against the respective findings by publicly discrediting them on the Web. Results show that strongly (vs. weakly) identified group members (i.e., people who identified as “gamers”) were particularly likely to discredit social identity threatening findings publicly (i.e., studies that found an effect of playing violent video games on aggression). A content analytical evaluation of online comments revealed that social identification specifically predicted critiques of the methodology employed in potentially threatening, but not in non-threatening research (Study 2). Furthermore, when participants were collectively (vs. self-) affirmed, identification did no longer predict discrediting posting behavior (Study 3). These findings contribute to the understanding of the formation of online collective action and add to the burgeoning literature on the question why certain scientific findings sometimes face a broad public opposition.

Do Victims of Injustice Punish to Improve Their Mood

Previous research has shown that angry people sometimes aggress to improve their mood. The present research tests whether people who have been treated unjustly seek revenge (i.e., retributive punishment) to improve their mood. The authors hypothesized that retributive punishment is generally not fuelled by a desire to improve one’s mood, whereas more destructive forms of aggression (e.g., venting one’s anger against people or inanimate objects) are. In Study 1, half of the participants were led to believe that their mood was frozen. In Study 2, half of the participants were led to believe that their mood would automatically improve at the end of the study by visiting a “good mood room” with snacks, beverages, and media. Retributive punishment was not affected by either mood management manipulation, whereas destructiveness was. Study 3 expands these findings by showing that retributive reactions were only reduced by a mood improvement manipulation when self-focus was induced.

Psychology of Justice

The present chapter describes the current state of affairs regarding the psychology of justice. We will give an overview of the most influential psychological theories of (in)justice, describe a representative set of studies and empirical findings from justice research in psychology, and discuss how these theories and findings can be used (a) to better understand justice-related perceptions, cognitions, emotions, and behaviors, and (b) to contribute to peaceful solutions to justice conflicts in our daily lives. This chapter is hierarchically, “vertically” organized. It describes psychological justice research on three different levels. The first, individual level focuses on justice “within” the individual and discusses individual needs, concerns, and motives that may be able to explain whether, why, and under what circumstances people care about justice and when they do not. The second, interpersonal level focuses on justice between individuals and discusses distributive, procedural, interactional, and retributive justice. The third, intergroup level focuses on justice-related conflicts between social groups or social “categories” such as companies, nations, or cultures. In this section, we will discuss what leads people to commit injustices to members of other groups and how group members—even those who were originally uninvolved in the events that originally sparked a conflict—respond to perceived group-based injustices.