Business Psychology Methods
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Goals of psychology
o Description, explanation and prediction of human behaviour and experience
 Differential Psychology: differences between people
 Social psychology: influence of social situations
Goal of General Psychology
o Identification of general laws
o Explanation of the basic mechanisms of cognitive performance
o Knowledge about processes of information processing
o Basis for other branches of psychology and applications
How do we learn and understand the world?
o Knowledge emerges from interplay of theory and empirical observation
 Theories: Explanation about how things work
 Empiricism: Systematic data collection
o Type I error – rejecting a true hypothesis (false positive)
 E.g., entrepreneur would be concerned about type I
o Type II error – accepting a false hypothesis (false negative)
 E.g., doctors or lawyer would be concerned about type II
o Precautionary Principle
 Encourage avoiding potential risks to human and overall ecological health,
even if scientific proof of harm has not yet been fully established
o Research is a process, not an event
 One study does not prove anything, conclusions are based on a body of
research results
 There are techniques to increase the probability for observed phenomena to
be real:
 Accurate tools
 Elimination of alternative explanations
 Use of different measures and different methods with different
samples of people
 Research is not the search for a specific result, but for an unbiased
explanation of how things really work
 Open Science Practices
Methods in psychology
o Research typically involves testing hypotheses using statistics to analyse quantified
observations
o Research objectives:
 Measurement of changes across people and across situations (e.g., attitudes)
 Abstract concepts, that need to be operationalized (= specifically defined in
terms of how they are represented and measured)
 Operational definitions can vary across studies
 Conclusions about behaviour should rely on the outcomes of many
studies
 Always consider the used operational definitions of variables when
deciding whether a particular finding from a study applies to your
context
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Research participants
 Different groups of people are likely to differ in their experience and
circumstances
 Findings in one group cannot automatically be generalized to
everyone else
 Sometimes you can generalize the results from a student sample to
the population in general, or population of interest (e.g., study about
attention processes in general population), sometimes not (foreign
policy decisions of political elite)
 Always consider the used sample when deciding whether a particular finding
from a study applies to your context
Counter Factual (Control group)
 Counterfactual events are the events that could have taken place but did not
 Counterfactuals pose a fundamental problem of causal inference because a
counter factual is not observable
Causality
 Is the relation between a cause and its effect
 An event results into an outcome or creates a consequence
 Correlation does necessarily not imply causality
Qualitative Designs
 Low standardizing mostly used if there is not so much known about a topic
 Goal: exploration, generation of hypotheses
 Naturalistic Observation (real world observation of behaviour, verbal
responses etc.)
 Restricted to things you can see or hear
 Approach:
 Focus groups
 Interview
 Recording of conversations
Correlational Studies
 Correlation does not equal causation
 No variable is manipulated, no random assignment, all variables are
measured as is at the same point in time
 Predictor: hypothesized causal variable
 Criterion: variable that should be predicted
 No specific prediction about how variables are related to each (pure
exploration whether there is a relation in a systematic way)
Survey Design
 We want to avoid survey termination or item nonresponse
 How many items are really needed? Will you use all for the analysis?
 Which concepts are relevant for my research?
 Which indicators are necessary to measure the concepts?
 Which items are needed to measure these indicators?
 What is a manageable length of a survey?
 Web 20 min, phone interview 30 min
 Face2face interview 90 min
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 Rule of thumb – 4 responses per minute
 All questions should be understood by survey responders and researchers in
the same way
 Should be easy to answer
 Process:
o Understand the question
 (e.g., no technical terms, no abbreviations, no
abstract descriptions, include helpful examples and
concrete time frames (last 2 weeks) no complex
sentence structures, no hypothetical questions, no
negation, avoid asking for two items in the same
question, no implicit assumptions)
o Search relevant information (e.g., memory)
o Judgement
o Transfer of judgement onto the scale
o Adapting of the response according to social desirability
 Context of each question relevant
 Standalone „How satisfied are you with your life? “vs. after „How
satisfied are you with your relationship? “
 Start with an easy ice breaker question
 Socio-demographic question in the end
 Exception when responses for screening or filtering needed
Reliability
 Describes the precision of measurements
 Specifically, how precisely can a measurement procedure capture the real
quantity that we are trying to measure
 Respectively, reliability = absence of measurement error
 How to measure reliability:
 Correlation between 2 measures
o Test-retest method
o Split-half method
o Inter-Class Correlation
Validity
 Describes the accuracy of a measure
 Specifically, does the procedure measure what it is supposed to measure?
 Respectively, validity = fit between underlying construct and the measure
 External validity
 Truth in real life
 Internal validity
 Truth in the study
Laboratory experiments
 Most highly controlled method of hypothesis testing
 Goal: Isolation of a cause-and-effect relationship
 Independent variables (IVs) are predicted to impact the dependent variables
(DVs)
 Manipulation of IVs, then measurement of DVs while controlling all other
confounding variables
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Random assignment of participants to different conditions (= different
versions of IVs)
Randomization
 Identical groups
 All same probability to be selected
 No prior knowledge about unobservable characteristics necessary
Quasi-experiments
 In cases where X cannot be manipulated = random assignment is impossible
or ethically unacceptable (e.g., political party affiliation, personality, socio
economic status, disease etc.)
 Natural occurring groups are measured and taken as experimental conditions
 Causal interpretations should be made with caution
 The effect could be due to a confounding variable, which just coincides with
quasi-X
 Disadvantages of Laboratory (Quasi-)Experiments
 External validity is not guaranteed
(Quasi) Field Experiments
 A controlled experiment which occurs at places with people going about their
normal behaviour (e.g., school, parking ramp)
 When trying out behavioural interventions in real world contexts Field
Experiments are often Quasi- Experiments
 A team class gets the intervention, the other team gets no
intervention, or another intervention with a known effect, or gets the
same intervention as the experimental group, but later
 Trying out a series of manipulations on the same group or in the
same setting (e.g., the same school) overtime
Statistical analysis
 Research designs are tools which helps to convert human thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours into numbers that can be statistically analysed
 Inferential statistics
o To understand differences between groups, and patterns
among variables
o To estimate whether a finding is likely to be real rather than
just random (statistical significance)
 Effect sizes
o Indicate the magnitude in which a (significant) IV (or
predictor) predict the DV (or criterion)
 Meta-analysis
o Quantitative synthesis: A technique that combines the
numerical results of many studies into representative
summary statistics
o Can be used to update a theory and serve as the foundation
for subsequent research
o How much of an intervention causes an effect
 What can stand in the way of correct inference?
 Sampling variation
 Sampling bias
 Truncated y or measurement error in y
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Limits to empiricism
 One-way causal thinking is an oversimplification
 Multicausality
 Bidirectional influence
Attitudes
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Definitions of attitudes
o “An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience,
exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects
and situations with which it is related.” (Allport, 1935)
o “Preferences thus imply all things considered rankings, which consist of the chooser’s
overall evaluation of the object over which preferences are defined. This implies a
ranking of those objects with respect to everything that matters to the agent:
desirability, social norms, moral principles, habits everything relevant to the
evaluation.” (Harper, Randall & Sharro, 2016)
o “An attitude is an internal state of preparation” (Spencer & Bain, 1980s)
Origin of attitudes
o Some attitudes are an indirect function of our genetic makeup, related to
temperament and personality
 But! Social experience plays a major role in shaping attitudes
Components of attitudes
o Cognitive
 Person's factual knowledge of the situation, object, or person, including
oneself
 Cognitively based attitude = based primarily on people’s beliefs about the
properties of an attitude object
o Affective
 Person's evaluation of, liking of, or emotional response to some situation,
object, or person
 Affectively based attitude = based more on people’s feelings and values than
on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object
o Behavioural
 Person's overt behaviour directed toward a situation, object, or person
 Behaviourally based attitude = based on observations of how one behaves
toward an object
Explicit vs. implicit attitudes
o Explicit
 Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report
 More dynamic and can change over time
 Can directly be measured
o Implicit
 Attitudes that exist outside of conscious awareness
 Automatically active
 Developed over time through experiences
 Likely to be resistant to change
 Need of indirect measurement
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Bertrand & Mullainathan (2004)
 Fictious applications were designed (with African American names vs. white
names). Send into ads in the fields of sales, administrative support, and
clerical and customer services sections. Researchers sent close to 5,000
resumes to 1,300 employment ads
 White names received 50 % more call backs for interviews; racial gap
is present in all sectors and over all employer sizes
Attitude change
o Conditioning
 Is a theory that the reaction (response) to an event or object (stimulus) or a
person can be modified by learning (conditioning)
 Types of learning
o Learning through association – Classical Conditioning
(Pavlov)
 A learning process that occurs through associations
between an environmental stimulus and a naturally
occurring stimulus
o Learning through association – Evaluative Conditioning
(Walther)
 A learning process that occurs through associations
between a neutral stimulus and a positive or
negative stimulus
 The process is not reflex evoking
o Learning through consequences – Operant Conditioning
(Skinner – The Skinner Box)
 A learning process in which consequences which
follow a response determine whether the behaviour
will be repeated
 Behaviour will likely be repeated when it was
reinforced and tends to not be repeated with
punishment
 The antecedent condition leads to a behaviour which
results in a consequence (punishment or
reinforcement) – thus, affecting future
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Behaviour can be reinforced continuously or
intermitted
 Continuous: Behaviour is rewarded or
punished every time (refund system)
o Suitable if we want to change
something quickly
 Intermitted: Consequence occurs only
sometimes (slot machine)
o Suitable when creating a routine
o Learning through observation – Modelling, Observational
Learning
Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)
 Peripheral Route
 No elaboration of the communication
 Noticing only the main characteristics
 Relevant points: Length of message, from whom is the message?
Expert? Attractiveness?
 Temporary and susceptible attitude change
 Central Route
 Ability and motivation to elaborate communication
 Paying attention to facts, content is relevant
 Persuasion works when facts are more logical
 Attitude change that is long lasting
Han & Shavitt (1944)
 Created two ads for shoes “It’s easy when you have the right shoes”
(independence) vs. “It’s easy when you have the right shoes for your family”
(interdependence). Showed the ads Americans and Koreans
 Results: Americans we more persuaded by first ad, Koreans by second ad
 Also analysed magazine ads in the United States and Korea: American ads:
emphasized individuality, self-improvement, and benefits of the product for
the individual consumer. Korean ads: emphasized the family, concerns about
others, and benefits for one’s social group
Developing “Persuasion Immunity”
 Attitude Inoculation
 Thinking of diverse counterarguments against your opinion before
being confronted with them can cause that you don’t change your
attitude when being confronted with counterarguments
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Being aware of different types of product placement
 Product placement e.g., in movies influences persons who watch it
(especially kids are vulnerable)
 When forewarned, people analyse more carefully and are more likely
to avoid attitude change
 Role-play (extension of inoculation)
 Peer pressure can evoke attitude contrary behaviour
 Role-play techniques help to resist situations in which you could be
influenced by peers
o When persuasion attempts backfire
 Pennebaker & Sanders (1976)
 Two signs:
o Sign 1:
 “Do not write on these walls under any
circumstances.”
 Less sufficient
o Sign 2:
 “Please don’t write on these walls.”
 More sufficient
 Reactance theory (Brehm, 1966)
 When the perceived decision freedom of a person is threatened,
there is a motivation to protect that autonomy and it results in
unintended backlash
o Person believes that they have control or freedom over the
outcome
o The more important the freedom, the more reactance
o The greater the number of freedoms threatened, the more
reactance
o Reactance may increase when there are implications of other
threats
Influence of attitudes
o Attitude-Behaviour Gap
 Individuals exhibit attitudes but fail to execute on these attitudes by engaging
in the corresponding behaviours
 LaPiere (1934)
 In a classic study, LaPierre drove through the U.S. with a Chinese
couple. They stopped at over 250 restaurants and hotels and were
refused service only once. Several months later, the owners were
surveyed on whether they would serve Chinese people
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Theory of Planned Behaviour
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Attitude Accessibility
 The strength of the association between an attitude object and a person’s
evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can
report how they feel about the object
 When accessibility is high, your attitude comes to mind whenever you see or
think about the attitude object
 The more direct experience people have with an attitude object, the more
accessible their attitude will be
 Deliberate Behaviour
o Given enough time and motivation to think about an issue,
even inaccessible attitudes can be conjured up and influence
the choice we make
 Spontaneous Behaviour
o Attitudes will predict spontaneous behaviours only when
they are highly accessible to people
Memory
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Definitions
o “Memory refers to the psychological processes of acquiring, storing, retaining and
later retrieving information. There are three major processes involved in memory:
encoding, storage, and retrieval” (Zlotnik & Vansintjan, 2019)
o “Usually, “memories” tends to refer to events recalled from the past, which are seen
as more representational and subjective. In contrast, “memory” now is used to refer
to the storage of information in general, including in DNA, digital information storage,
and neuro chemical processes. Today, science has moved far beyond a popular
understanding of memory as fixed, subjective, and personal. In the extended
definition, it is simply the capacity to store and retrieve information.” (Zlotnik &
Vansintjan, 2019)
Importance of memory
o Without a memory of the past, we cannot operate in the present or think about the
future
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Memory function is the basis for:
 Learning
 Recognizing locations and people
 Remembering how to move
o Memory loss impairs your ability to navigate effectively in the environment and even
alters your perception of the world
Biology of remembering
o Memory consists of physical changes in the brain that encode a representation of
past experiences memory traces (engrams) can be accessed to reconstruct the past
(imperfectly) engrams are built by strengthening synapses re-calling a memory
reactivates a pattern of nerve cell signalling that mimics the original experience
Memory organisation
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Episodic memory (declarative / explicit memory)
 Storage and recall of specific event
 Linked to a specific place and time
 Past-oriented
 Associated with conscious memory
 Allows to recall past situation
 Developed late
 During evolution (phylogenesis)
 During the individual development (ontogenesis) and early decaying
Semantic memory (declarative / explicit memory)
 General knowledge about the world, concepts, language etc.
 Object, word meanings, facts, people
 No reference to any specific time and place / abstraction
 Used in everyday life (e.g., workplace)
 Unlimited capacity
 BUT we do not learn everything we see
o Attention is needed to transfer perceived stimuli in the
long-term memory store
 BUT we are not able to retrieve everything we’ve learned
Priming (non-declarative / implicit memory)
 Exposure to one stimulus may influence a response to a subsequent stimulus,
without conscious guidance or intention
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Working memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974, 2002)
o Working memory replaces the unitary short-term memory
o Consists of Central executive, Phonological Loop, Visuo-Spatial Sktech Pad and
Episodic Buffer (added later on)
 Limited capacity
 Function fairly independently of each other
o Key assumptions
 If two tasks use the same component, they cannot be performed successfully
together
 If two tasks use different components, they can be performed as well
together as separately
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Robins et al. (1996)
 N = 20 chess players selected continuation moves from various chess
positions while also performing one of the following secondary tasks
 Conditions:
 Control: repetitive tapping
 Suppression CE: random letter generation
 Suppression VSSP: pressing keys on a keypad in a clockwise fashion
 Suppression PL: rapid repetition of the word “see-saw”
 Results:
 Impaired quality of chess moves in Suppression of CE and VSSP
condition but not in the PL
 Chess requires central executive (CE) and visuo-spatial sketchpad
(VSSP) but not the phonological loop (PL)
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Phonological loop
 Phonological store
 Passive, concerned with speech perception
 Articulatory control process
 Active, concerned with speech production
 Rehearsal
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Phonological Similarity Effect
 Reproduction in correct order worse with phonologically similar
words, than phonologically dissimilar words
 Interchanges due to phonological similarity
 Suggest language-based rehearsal processes within the phonological
loop
 Word-length effect
 Memory span is smaller for words that take long time to be
pronounced
 Demonstrated in tasks measuring memory span
o Presentation of words
o Recall as many words as possible in the correct order
 Less for long words
 Articulatory suppression eliminates the word length effect
o Suggest that phonological loop capacity is determined by
temporal duration of articulation
 Criticism: cofounded by orthographic neighbours
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
 Is used for temporary storage and processing of spatial and visual
information
 There is some controversy about the question: Is visual and spatial
information processed in separate systems? (Logie, 1995)
 Visual cache
o Stores information about visual form and colour
 Inner scribe
o Processes spatial and movement information
o Involved in rehearsal of information in visual cache
o Transfers information from the visual cache to the central
executive
Central Executive
 Associated with executive functions / control processes
 Focusing attention or concentration
 Dividing attention between two stimulus streams
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 Switching attention between tasks
 Interfacing with long-term memory
o Episodic Buffer
 System with limited capacity
 4 chunks / "episodes“
 Integrates information from different sources
 Acts as a buffer between phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad
and also linked to a perception and long-term memory
 A process of active information integration (active binding)
 Explains how long-term memory can influence short-term memory
processing
 Limitations
 Unclear how all different information is combined
 Increases flexibility of the model – harder to test
 Research on information storage from other modalities (e.g., smell,
taste) is lacking
Improving memory performance
o Increase depth of processing
 Deeper level of processing produces more elaborate, longer lasting, and
stronger memory traces than shallow levels
 Rehearsal / maintenance = simply repeating information
 Elaboration = deep semantic processing
 Prior knowledge helps to organize memory during encoding
 Advantage in learning for people with broad knowledge base
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Mnemonics
 A memory technique that can help increase your ability to recall and retain
information
 Mnemonic techniques act as memory aids to help you translate pieces of
information from short-term memory to long-term memory
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Types of mnemonic devices
 Method of loci
 Chunking (e.g., 3567 5892 3789 3887)
 Acronyms and acrostics (PEN proton, electron, neutron)
 Rhyming mnemonics or music mnemonics (ABC song, Columbus
sailed the ocean blue)
 People are better able to remember a narrative than unordered numbers
 Bower & Clark (1969)
 N = 24 undergraduate students took part in a serial learning task of
12 lists with nouns
 Conditions:
o Control: simple learn the words from each list
o Experimental: construct a story around the words to be
remembered
 Results:
o Immediate recall after studying each list: 100 % for both
groups
o Recall after all 12 lists had been studied: Average median
recall: 13 % in the control group and 93 % in the narrative
group correct
o Less interest interference in the narrative group
Testing effect
 Retrieval practice of material to be remembered during learning improves
learning success (and more than subjectively expected)
 Retrieval-effort hypothesis
 Testing is particularly effective when retrieval during the learning
period is difficult
 With longer intervals between learning and recall
 Can be used regardless of the nature of the material
 Roediger & Karpicke (2006)
 N= 120 undergraduate students were asked to recall the content of a
text passage
 Conditions:
o Repeated study: 4 x reading
o Simple test: 3 x reading and then remembering as much as
possible (recall)
o Multiple test: 1 x reading and 3 x remembering (recall)
findings
 Results:
o After 5 min: repeated studying best performance
o After 1 week: multiple testing 50 % better than repeated
studying!
 Giebl et al. (2021)
 N = 240 studied information on computer programming and then
had to solve a problem related to the content, but impossible to
solve without additional information
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Conditions:
o No pretest group: immediate access to the needed
information via simulated Google search (same page for all
participants)
o Pretest group: access to simulated Google search only after
spending a few minutes trying to solve the problem (no
corrective feedback)
Results:
o Final test performance by participants who completed a
pretest significantly better than by participants without
pretest
o Significant pretesting effect for participants with some
experience, but not for participants without experience
Mediation
 Mindfulness training can help to increase the ability to focus and therefore
the ability to memorize things
 Mrazek et al. (2013)
 N = 48 undergraduate students were tested with a standardized
academic ability test before and after 2 weeks of attending a course
 Conditions:
o Mindfulness class vs. nutrition class
 Results:
o No difference in performance and mind wandering before
training
o Significant improvement in the mindfulness group (both:
better performance and less mind wandering on the
post-test than on the pretest), no effect for the nutrition
group
o Improvements in performance were mediated by reduced
mind wandering among participants who was prone to
distraction at pretesting
Sleep
 Dumay (2016)
 Participants (N = 72) took memory tests immediately after being
trained on made-up words (e.g., caravot); they then took a retest
after a 12-hour period of sleep or wakefulness
 Procedure:
o Comparison between subjects
 Results:
o Greater recollection after a 12-hour sleeping period; whereas
immediately after exposure they were not able to recall the
terms successfully
 Sleep clearly promotes access to declarative
memories that were initially too weak to be
retrieved => they can be sharpened overnight
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Memory decay over time
o Ebbinghaus (1885/1913)
 N=1
 To study memory strength, Ebbinghaus developed an experiment, involving a
series of approximately 2,300 nonsense syllables. These syllables were
developed by randomly placing a vowel between two consonants, mixed up
and then chosen by chance
 Experimented with the idea of memory, including learning, retention,
association and reproduction
 Re-learning after a certain period of time
 Results:
 Reduction in the number of trials during re-learning to achieve the
same performance
o Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
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Function of forgetting
o Forgetting is not only a negative but an important function
o An intelligent memory system needs forgetting
 Enhance psychological wellbeing by reducing access to painful memories
 Useful to forget outdated information (e.g., where your friends used to live)
 Typically, useful to forget specific details and focus on the overall gist or
message, because it allows us to make predictions about the future (Nørby
2015; Richards and Frankland, 2017)
o How do we do it?
 Through different conscious or unconscious mechanisms of forgetting
 Forgetting is often slower in implicit than explicit memory
o Mitchell (2006)
 N = 33 (12 from the original experiment) participants identify pictures from
fragments having previously seen some of them in an experiment 17 years
ago he(for 1-3s)
 Results:
 Performance M = 12.5 % better with the previously seen pictures,
but no explicit memory
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Replication by Mitchell, Kelly & Brown (2017)
 N = 28 participants completed implicit memory tasks (picture fragment
identification, word fragment completion, AND additionally word stem
completion, and category exemplar generation), 14 of those saw word and
picture stimuli in 1999-2000 and were retested after 11-14 years
 Results:
 Performance picture tasks M = 12,3 %
 Performance word task M = 20,9 % better with stimuli seen before,
but again no explicit memory and no replication in the conceptually
similar tasks run additionally
Mechanisms of forgetting
o Decay
 Gradual loss of the substrate of memories (memory trace)
 Unimportant memories are deleted
o Interference
 Disruption of different memory traces (forward vs. backward)
 Competition of correct and incorrect answers
 Competing / similar activation – harder to choose the correct
alternative
 Proactive interference (forward inhibition)
 Disruption of new knowledge by previously acquired (similar)
knowledge
 Retroactive interference (backward inhibition)
 Disruption of old knowledge by newly acquired knowledge
 Forgetting triggered by learning or information processing in the
retention period
 Complex & detailed memories (i.e., containing contextual information) =
immune to interference from other memories (in contrast to weak context
poor memories) (Sadeh et al. 2016)
o Directed forgetting
 Strategies for active suppression of unwanted memories
 Replacement of the associated word by another word (thought
substitution)
 Focusing on the cue word and blocking out the associated target
word (direct suppression)
o Cue-dependent forgetting
 Forgetting that occurs due to lack of appropriate retrieval cues
 Forgetting not only caused by weak / interfering memory traces but
also by problems with retrieval stimuli
 Encoding Specificity Principle (Tulving, 1979)
 Success of memory retrieval increases with degree of information
overlap between:
o Information presented during retrieval and
o Information stored in memory including context
 External context (e.g., environment)
 Internal context (e.g., mood)
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Memory consolidation
 Physiological process involved in transforming temporary, fragile memory in
long-term memory
 Unconsolidated memories are highly vulnerable to interference and
forgetting
 "New memories are clear but fragile and old ones are faded but
robust." (Wixted, 2004, p. 265)
 Consolidation during sleep can enhance long-term memory
 Alcohol before learning impedes consolidation (blackouts)
 Reconsolidation
 New process making old memories reactivated and changeable again
 Useful to update memories
How reliable is our memory – biases
o Offer et al. (2002)
 N = 73 mentally healthy 14-year-old males, studied in 1962. Assessment of
self-image, attitudes, family relationships, religion, general activities + school
records and teacher ratings over the time of 2 years
 N = 67 of these participants interviewed in 1991 at the age of 48
 Results:
 Significant differences between adult memories of adolescence and
what was actually reported in adolescence
 Memory accuracy not better than expected by chance
o Remembering personal experiences
 Memory ≠ video recorder or a library, but is a constructive process
 Both our goals and outer circumstances can influence what is attended and
then stored in our memory, but also what is retrieved in a current situation
 While remembering personal experiences there are two important goals:
 Coherence (we like to have a coherent picture about our world and
ourselves) and Correspondence (memories should reflect the true
experience)
o Over time, coherence tends to win
o What can bias our memories?
 Confirmation bias
 A tendency for (eyewitnesses) memory to be distorted by their prior
expectations
 Lindholm & Christianson (1998)
o N = 92 (41 immigrants) Swedish and immigrant students
observed a simulated robbery in which the thief was either
of Swedish origin or an immigrant
o Task:
 Select the perpetrator from a set of suspects: four
persons of Swedish origin; four immigrants
o

Results:
 Swedish students were twice as likely to select an
innocent immigrant than an innocent Swede as the
culprit
 Participants’ expectations were influenced by the
fact that immigrants are overrepresented in Swedish
crime statistics
Influence of schemas
 Organized packet of information about the world, events or people
stored in memory
 Abstracted commonalities across multiple experiences
o Have "blanks" which can be filled with different values
o Can be combined with each other
o Complex combination of concepts and their relations
 Tuckey & Brewer (2003)
o N = 106 undergraduates saw a video of a simulated bank
robbery
o Results:
 Eyewitnesses recalled information relevant to the
bank robbery schema better than schema unrelated
information (e.g., the colour of the getaway car)
o In a follow up study N = 97 undergraduates saw a robber’s
head covered by a balaclava (ski mask) so their gender was
ambiguous
o Results:
 Eyewitnesses mostly interpreted the ambiguous
information as being consistent with their bank
robbery schema. Thus, their recall was systematically
distorted by including information from their bank
robbery schema
 Darley & Gross (1983)
o A study on the influence of schemas: how does information
of social class affect memory and judgement; participants
(N = 70) were presented with a picture and some further
information about a child
o Conditions:
 Four experimental groups: a 2 X 2 factorial design
(positive and negative levels of expectancy and
performance and no performance); one control
group (performance only)
o Results:
 The participants who thought that Hannah had come
from an upper-class background remembered that
she had gotten more correct answers than those
who thought she was from a lower-class background

Misinformation effect
 Distorting eff. of misleading info. presented after an event happened
 Loftus & Palmer (1974)
o N = 45 undergraduate students watched multiple films of
traffic accidents. Afterwards participants were asked to
describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses.
They were then asked specific questions, including the
question “About how fast were the cars going when they
(smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted) each other?”
Thus, the IV was the wording of the question and the DV was
the speed reported by the participants
o Results:
 [collided/crashed] 34 mph vs. 41 mph; one week
later: broken glass? 14% vs. 32%
o Explanation of the effect: Reconsolidation and updating of
memory trace
 Braun et al. (2002)
o N = 167 (104 female) undergraduate psychology students
pretest: list of childhood events, e.g., “Met and shook hands
with a cartoon character at a theme park”, question: “Did
this event had happened to you?” task a week later: “Watch
this ad, imagine yourself experiencing the situation in the ad
and write down how it makes you feel.” (Control ad vs. a
Disney resort ad with an impossible character like Bugs
Bunny)
o Post test (ca. 20 min later): “Had you ever visited Disney
before and if so, describe your memory of this event and
how important it was to you”
o Results:
 Increased confidence that the event happened
 Reporting of false memories of shaking Bugs Bunny’s
hand at a Disney resort
 Shaw & Porter (2015)
o N = 60 undergraduate students (43 female) with no police
contact, experimenter contacts their caregiver. Caregivers
report emotional events from the time participant was 11-14
(& previous police contacts)
o 2 conditions: false criminal event vs. false emotional event
o 3 interviews at approximately 1-week intervals, discussing 2
events: one true event = emotional event, one false
event = ostensible event about a committed crime
Encouragement to try to remember the event and its details
o Results:
 In the criminal condition: 70% (n = 21) reported false
memories of committing a crime resulting in police
contact
 False memories had the same complex descriptive
and multisensory components as true memories


Salience and Cognitive accessibility
 The extent to which knowledge is activated in memory, and thus
likely to be used in cognition and behaviour (Walinga & Stangor,
2014)
 Consequences
o Influence on behaviour and decisions, e.g., on purchasing
decisions
 Mechanism
o We attend to, make use of and remember some information
better than other information / a stimulus that is unique,
unexpected, recent, colourful…
 Example
o Loftus & Messo (1987)
 Participants’ attention was rather drawn to a pistol
than to a cheque book
Counterfactual thinking
 We “replay” events such that they turn out differently (especially
when only minor changes in the events leading up to them make a
difference)
 The tendency to think about and experience events according to
“what might have been” (Walinga & Stangor, 2014)
 Consequences
o Influences our emotions and evaluations of a situation
o Was shown to even influence jury decisions (Miller, Turnbull,
& McFarland, 1990)
 Mechanism
o Imagining how a situation could have played out for the
better or the worse
 Medvec, Madey & Gilovich (1995)
o N = 115 Empire State Game medallists participated in this
study. All of the participants won bronze (n = 55) or silver
(n = 60) medals in swimming or track events
o Method:
 The athletes were asked to rate their thoughts about
their performance on a 10 point (Are you concerned
with thoughts of “At least I …” (1) versus “I almost”
(10)
o Results:
 Silver medallists’ thoughts following the competition
were more focused on “I almost” than were bronze
medallists (6.8 vs. 5.7)
 Bronze medallists also perceived as being more
happy

Overconfidence
 We are more certain that our memories and judgments are accurate
than we should be
 The tendency for people to be too certain about their ability to
accurately remember events and to make judgments (Walinga &
Stangor, 2014)
 Consequences
o Overestimating accuracy of memories or predictions
 Example:
o Eyewitness testimonies – only a small correlation of accuracy
and confidence in memory


Moore & Healy (2008)
o Overestimation, overplacement and overprecision: are they
differing operationalization of overconfidence or
conceptually and empirically distinct concepts?
o Method:
 Students (N = 82) were asked to predict their and
other ‘s performance before and after taking each
round of 18 trivia quizzes
o Results:
 On difficult tasks, people overestimate their actual
performances but also mistakenly believe that they
are worse than others; on easy tasks, people
underestimate their actual performances but
mistakenly believe they are better than others
o Explanation of the effect: People often have imperfect
information about their own performance but even worse
information about the performances of others their
estimates are regressive
Miller & Geraci (2011)
o N = 113 students from a cognitive psychology course at Texas
A&M University were asked to record before the first exam, a
letter grade prediction as well as their confidence in this
judgement on the exam cover sheet
o Method:
 Quasi Experiment
o
o
Results:
 Indicated that students in the top half, were
significantly more calibrated (less overconfident)
than were students in the bottom half, but students
that did worse in the exam were also less confident
in their prediction
 Source monitoring
 The ability to accurately identify the source of a memory (Walinga &
Stangor, 2014)
 Consequences
o Confusion: Real experience vs imagined events vs experience
of someone else?
o The sleeper effect = attitude change that occurs over time
when we forget the source of information (Pratkanis et al.,
1988)
Are these biases adaptive?
 How is it possible, that evolution has allowed such an imperfect memory
system to survive?
 Same brain networks involved in memorizing past events and
imagining and planning future events
o Mental time travel into the past or into the future
 Flexibility and constructive nature of memory allows us to simulate
possible future events (and not only one we already have
experienced in the past)
Motivation


Definitions
o Motivation is defined as the force that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented
behaviours
o A person’s motivation to pursue a certain goal is determined by situational stimuli,
personal preferences, and the interaction of the two
o The forces that trigger motivation can be biological, emotional, cognitive or social
Personal and situational motivators
o Personal
 Basic psychological needs
 Shared by all humas, e.g., hunger and thirst
 Implicit motives (motive dispositions)
 Unconscious affectively charged preferences for certain situations
 Explicit motives
 Conscious self-images, values, and goals that people attribute to
themselves
o Situational
 Every potential positive or negative outcome that a situation has, or signals
can act as an incentive depending on the personal factors



Incentives can be the outcome, or various consequences of a situation but
also the action / activity itself
History of motivation theories
o Early motivation theories
 Darwin (1872) located the explanation of human motives in evolved
instincutal reaction (sexual arousal, fear, anger,…)
 McDougall’s Instinct Theory (1923): being aroused by a physical need is the
motivation to work towards a goal
 Woodworth’s Behaviour-Primacy theory (1918, 1958): explored the concept
of “drive”
 Instincts and drives as fundamental motivators of action
o The behaviourist movement
 Behaviour – direct function of external stimuli and the application of
observable reinforcing events
 Drive Theory (Hull, 1943): drives stem from basic psychological needs;
reduction of the drive acts as a reinforcement for that behaviour
 Operant conditioning: behaviour is motivated by reinforcements
 External reinforcements as drives of behaviour; internal factors not
considered
o Away from Behaviourism
 Intrisinc motivation and psychological needs were increasingly considered;
internal motives were considered to initiate and guide actions
 Cognitive Motivation Theories: focus on how cognitive factors affect
motivation
 For example: A person’s belief in their ability to achieve a goal
(self-efficacy) can have a huge impact on their motivation
 Evolutionary Psychology: perspectives concerning foundation of our natures
 Focus: internal sources of motivation
Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation
o A mix of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors contribute to motivation
 Intrinsic motivation
 Comes from within the individual
o Autonomy
o Competence
o Purpose
 Intrinsically motivated behaviours are performed because of the
sense of personal satisfaction that they bring
 Extrinsic motivation
 Comes from outside the individual
o Compensation
o Reward
o Avoiding punishment
 Extrinsically motivated behaviours are performed in order to receive
something from others or to avoid punishment


Leeper, Greene & Nisbett (1973)
 N = 51 children, 40 to 63 months old
 The children were introduced to a new activity: drawing with
colourful markers
 Measures:
o Intrinsic motivation: time spent drawing
 Procedure:
o Pre-experimental session: baseline intrinsic motivation
o Experimental session: children were assigned to one of three
conditions
 Expected reward condition: certificate
 Unexpected reward condition: certificate
 No reward condition: no certificate
o Post-experimental session: no rewards are provided
 Results:
o Post- experimental session:
 Intrinsic motivation in the expected reward condition
was lower than in unexpected reward condition and
no reward condition
o Expected reward condition:
 Intrinsic motivation in post-experimental session was
lower than in pre-experimental session
Crowding-out effect
o Receiving an external reward for an activity that is actually intrinsically motivated
undermines intrinsic motivation
o Under which conditions can intrinsic motivation crowd out?
 The activity is originally intrinsically motivated
 The external reward is interpreted as a monitoring device
o Why can intrinsic motivation crowd out?
 A popular explanation by the Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET, 1985)
 External rewards, which are perceived as controlling, undermine a
person's autonomy, and thereby diminish intrinsic motivation
o Rewards which are perceived as controlling, for example:
 Expected tangible rewards which are directly
contingent on behaviour
 Rewarding system – performance based
o Rewards which are not perceived as controlling or to a
lesser extent, for example:
 Tangible rewards which are not directly contingent
on behaviour
 Unexpected tangible rewards
 Base salary
o In general conditions which negatively impact these factors are likely to reduce
intrinsic motivation
 Autonomy
 Competence
 And / or purpose


Motivation & performance
o Is intrinsic or extrinsic motivation more important to boost performance?
 Short-term: extrinsic motivation
 Long-term: intrinsic motivation
o Task division
 Algorithmic tasks
 Performance contingent external incentives are powerful in
motivating employees to deliver high quantity performance
 Payment scheme – performance bonuses
 Heuristic tasks
 Intrinsic motivation is more important for high quality performance
compared to extrinsic motivation
 Payment scheme – high base salary
o Intrinsic motivation seems to be more beneficial for overall psychological wellbeing:
 E.g., intrinsic motivation is negatively linked to distress as well as to burn-out,
and positively linked to job satisfaction
 Extrinsic motivation is positively linked to distress as well as to burn-out, and
unrelated to job satisfaction
o Promoting intrinsic motivation
 Create an autonomy supporting work environment
 Acknowledge employee’s competence and provide opportunities for them to
improve their skills
 Create purpose and meaning
 Ask employees for feedback regarding the work process
o Targets autonomy & competence
 Give informational feedback
o Targets autonomy & competence
 Give employees meaningful choices
o Targets autonomy & competence
 Provide a rationale when requesting a specific behaviour
o Targets purpose & meaning
 Satisfy the need for relatedness; need to belong and connect
 Avoid directly performance contingent rewards for incentivizing
heuristic tasks and creative work
 Use performance contingent rewards mainly for incentivizing
algorithmic tasks & pay enough & add informational feedback &
provide purpose and meaning & foster autonomy
Expectancy-value theory (Vroom, 1964)
o The expectancy value theory states that the expected outcomes and perceived values
of a task influence a person's desire to achieve that task
 High action-outcome expectancy – studying -> getting a degree
 Low situation-outcome expectancy – has to gather all the material to study
 High outcome-consequences expectancy – degree -> job

Motivation through competition
o Humans are achievement-seeking creatures
o Our effort can rise or fall as we benchmark ourselves against others
o Rivalries
 Individuals are particularly motivated to defeat an opponent with whom they
have a history
 Rivalries are double-edged swords that can motivate high levels of effort but
also counterproductive behaviours:
 Raise the perceived stakes of a competition even though the actual
stakes are the same, motivating people to work harder, smarter, and
longer
 Increase the motivation to achieve a gain & compel individuals to
focus on goal attainment
 Increase physiological arousal (e.g., faster heartbeat)
 Increase the likelihood of taking risks
 Sometimes motivate the violation of rules and unethical behaviour
by raising status concerns and making self-worth more contingent
on performance
o Focus on the benefits of winning rather than on the costs of
acting immorally
o Forming constructive competition
 It is crucial to understand how to obtain the benefits without the costs
 Employees must have a vested interest in their rival’s success as well
as their own
 Incentives can temporarily encourage cooperation between
competitors, but building a relationship can maintain cooperation
 The presence of a common outgroup promotes cooperation
 The temporal order matters
o Shifting from collective to individual rewards can foster
friendly competition, the reverse most likely leads to
counterproductive behaviour (Johnson et al. 2006)
o Improving knowledge flows
 Sandvik et. al (2020); N = 653 agents
 Design:
o Structured Meetings Treatment: instructed to meet up
o Pair Incentives Treatment: pairs received joint boni
o Combined Treatment: structured meetings & pair incentives
o Control Treatment: no intervention
 Results:
o Encouraging workers to talk about their sales techniques
with a randomly chosen partner during short meetings
substantially lifted average sales revenue during and after
the experiment
o Worker pairs given incentives to increase joint output
increased sales during the experiment but not afterwards
o Worker pairs given both treatments had little improvement
above the meetings treatment alone
o
o
o
Expectations
 Every competition comes with performance expectations
 Some individuals are expected to excel, and others are expected to struggle
 Self-fulfilling prophecies
 Employees internalize social expectations, performing better when
expectations are high (the Pygmalion effect) and worse they are low
(the Golem Effect)
 Self-negating prophecies
 Favourites may become complacent, while low expectations can
motivate employees to defy them
 Both low and high expectations can lead to better performance under certain
conditions – a key concern is to identify these conditions
The motivation of the underdog
 Nurmohamed (2020); N = 596 participants for an online experiment using
TurkPrime
 Design:
o Underdog condition: I don’t think you can do it
o High expectation condition: you are a perfect fit
 + random assignment to high credibility or low
credibility observer
 Result:
o Underdog expectations only motivated higher performance
when the source of expectations lacked credibility
Prosocial motivation
 Is selfishness the key to success?
 Selfishness = the inner motivation to help and care about oneself
(versus others) (Grant & Shandell, 2022)
 Studies hint towards the detrimental effect or selfishness at work
(ten Brinke et al., 2017) and in politics (ten Brinke et al., 2016)
 Benefits of prosocial motivation
 Increased social capital
o Prosocial motives and behaviours build status, trust, and
goodwill, and increases the likelihood of others helping in
return
 Working smarter
o Prosocial motivation boosts creativity and facilitates the
generation of ideas that are ultimately useful to others
 Working harder
o Prosocial motivation connects employees’ jobs to a purpose
larger than themselves, boosting the intensity and
persistence of their effort
 Working safer
o Prosocial motivation can encourage caution and discourage
risky decisions by leading individuals to consider the
consequences for others


Foster prosocial motivation
 Make it personal
o Many employees hold jobs that have a positive impact on
others but have little exposure to the ultimate beneficiaries
of their work
 Personalizing and humanizing employees’ jobs by
establishing contact with those who benefit from it
can have surprising motivational effects (Grant et al.,
2007, 2008)
 Task significance can drive performance:
 When employees are aware of the positive
impact of their jobs on others, they work
harder and safer (Grant, 2008)
 Give the right incentives
o Goals and incentive structures can also influence prosocial
motivations and behaviours
 Nonfinancial rewards can be more effective at
eliciting effort for prosocial tasks relative to financial
rewards
 Prosocial bonuses, e.g.,
 Money to donate to charity – makes
employees feel happier
 Money spent on team members – leads to
better team performance (Anik et al. 2013)
 The dark side of prosocial motivation
 While being prosocially motivated can be very beneficial for both the
individual and for others, it also comes with costs under certain
conditions
o Prosocially motivated individuals are more likely to escalate
their commitment to failing prosocial initiatives than to
personal initiatives both because they care about the impact
on others and because they want to maintain their moral
self-image
o The desire to help others can enable people to rationalize
otherwise indefensible actions and motivate unethical
behaviour
o When intrinsic motivation is lacking, prosocial motivation can
lead to lower persistence and productivity
o Prosocially motivated individuals with poor time
management skills might engage in too many helping
behaviours and struggle with their own tasks
Remote motivation
o General effect of remote work
 Positive effects: flexibility, reduction in commuting time, increases in
productivity, employee retention, job satisfaction etc. (Martin & MacDonnell,
2012; Tavares, 2017)

o
o
o
o
Negative effects: mixed evidence on job satisfaction and productivity, social
isolation, higher stress, presenteeism, communication blocks (Bailey &
Kurland, 2002; DiMartino & Wirth, 1990; Kim et al., 2021; Steidelmüller et al.,
2020)
Remote work and motivation
 On the one hand: associated with lower levels of motivation, e.g., through
professional isolation (Hitka et al., 2021; Imdad & Duffy, 2021; Romeo et al.,
2022)
 On the other hand: home office as predictor of greater job (Hill et al., 2003)
How does this go together?
 Having the flexibility and the autonomy to decide when to work remotely or
when not to work remotely is important (Hill et al., 2003)
 Full-remote vs. only 2-3 days (Cailier et al., 2011; Shimura et al., 2021)
How to do it right?
 Importance of managers and their managing style (Romeo et al., 2022)
 Strengthen the sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness (Orini &
Rodrigues, 2020)
 Foster self-regulation (Zimmermann, 2008)
 Stay in touch to prevent professional isolation: encourage formal and
informal exchange between employees, implement remote workshops,
socials etc. (Carillo et al., 2020)
How hybrid working from home works out
 Bloom, Han & Liang (2022)
 N = 1612 employees
 Procedure:
o Randomized control trial
o Trip.com decided to evaluate hybrid WFH
o Employees with odd birthdays were randomized into the
treatment group allowing hybrid WFH
 Results:
o WFH reduced attrition rates by 35% and improved
self-reported work satisfaction scores
o WFH reduced hours worked on home days but increased it
on other workdays and the weekend
o WFH employees increased individual messaging and group
video call communication, even when in the office
o No impact on WFH performance reviews or promotions
(BUT small, potentially positive impact on productivity)
o
Implementing remote work the right way (Beauregard et al., 2019)
Group processes




Definition of a group
o A group consists of two or more people who interact and are interdependent
Why do we need groups?
o Basic need – need to belong
o Evolutionary explanation
 Being in a group served as a survival advantage
 Together it was easier to hunt and grow food or find a partner to mate with;
children could be looked after etc.
Advantages of groups
o Goal attainment – goals can be reached quicker and more efficiently
o Identity – sense of belonging and a social identity
o Behavioural safety – social norms, social roles
 Others serve as a source of information (reducing uncertainty)
Fundamental aspects of groups
o Social identity
 Groups provide us with a social identity
 The part of a person’s self-concept that is based on their
identification with a nation or religious or political group or an
occupation or other social affiliations
 Groups give us a sense of belonging but also make us feel distinctive (from
those not in our group)




Important for a person’s self-esteem
 Cialdini et al., 1976: students were more likely to wear team jerseys /
etc. the Monday following a football game when the team won
 Which identity is salient depends on how beneficial it is for our
self-esteem
In-group bias
 Tendency to favour one’s own group, its members, its characteristics,
and its products particularly in reference to other groups
 Tajfel et al. (1971)
o N = 64 male pupils
o Overview over the experimental procedure:
 Estimation task
 Categorization: randomly categorized as
over-estimators or under-estimators
 Independent task: assigning rewards or penalties to
other pupils
o Results:
 Boys assigned more points to members of their own
group (over-estimators or under-estimators)
 Mere categorization in groups can lead to in-group favouritism and
out-group derogation
Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1971)
 A person has not one “personal self” but rather several selves that
correspond to widening circles of group membership
o You act as representation of a group rather than yourself
Stereotype threat
 The fear of confirming other’s negative stereotype of your group
 Trigger – salience of social identity
 Reduces our working memory capacity and hinders us to perform at
our best
 Steele & Aronson (1995)
o Participants: 20 African American and 20 white students
from Stanford University
o Task: task measuring cognitive abilities
o
o
o
o
Conditions: half of the students of each racial group were
randomly assigned to one of two conditions
 Diagnostic condition: diagnosis of intellectual ability
 Activating stereotype threat
 Non-diagnostic condition: examining the process of
test taking but didn’t care about the students’
abilities
Results:
 White students performed equally well (or poorly)
regardless of whether or not they believed the test
was being used as a diagnostic tool
 African American students who believed their
abilities were not being measured performed as well
as the white students
 African American students who thought the test was
measuring their abilities did not perform as well as
the white students or as well as the African
Americans in the other group
Social norms
 Reflect the group’s generally accepted way of thinking, feeling, or acting
 Descriptive social norms = what people think, feel, or do
 Injunctive social norms = what people should think, feel, or do
 Rules are needed so groups can function
 Can form naturally
 Do not have to be formal
 Conformity
 Sherif (1936)
o Participants (N = 40, males) sat in a totally dark room and
focused on a single point of light
o The light seemed to jump and then disappear. Seconds later
the light again appeared, moved, and disappeared
o Each time the observer had to estimate how far the light had
moved
o In fact, the light did not move at all (autokinetic effect)
o Conditions:
 Within-subject Design: Alone – 3 times as a member
of a 3-person group
o Results:
 Each group of three converged on an estimate over
the course of three trials
Social roles
 Shared expectations in a group about how people occupying certain positions
are supposed to behave (Ellemers & Jetten, 2013; Hare, 2003)
 Social roles can be very helpful because people know what to expect from
each other
 Following roles leads to satisfaction and good performance
 People can „get lost” in their social role under certain circumstances, e.g.,
Stanford Prison Experiment (critics for ethical and methodological reasons)
o
Group cohesiveness
 Unity of a group
 Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote mutual liking
 Important for stability of the group and its members desire to stay in the
group and partake in joint activities
 Positive aspects of cohesiveness
 Cohesive groups encourage cooperation
o Those who identify with a cohesive group are more likely to
participate in and contribute to group activities (Brawley,
Carron, & Widmeyer, 1988)
 Cohesive groups follow norms
o Group belonging helps to reach consensus about goals &
strategies for accomplishing those goals (Abrams, 2013)
o Those who identify with the group are likely to adhere to its
norms (McGrath, 1984)
o New members quickly absorb the group’s “way of doing
things” (Forsyth, 1999)
 Cohesive groups attract and keep valued members
o Shared social identity boosts people’s liking for the group,
their commitment, and their morale (Abrams, 2013;
Hackman, 1992)
o Belonging to a cohesive group even helps people cope with
stress, perhaps by offering them effective social support
(Bowers, Weaver, & Morgan, 1996; Christensen, Schmidt,
Budtz Jorgensen, & Avlund, 2006)
 Negative aspects of cohesiveness
 Cohesiveness can get in the way of optimal performance if
maintaining good relations among group members becomes more
important than finding good solutions to a problem
 The focus on cohesiveness can lead to systematic biases e.g., opinion
bubbles, lack of expertise, ability and personality, lack of creativity
and reduced performance
 McLeod, Lobel & Cox (1996)
 N = 135 undergraduate and graduate students worked in groups (3 to
5 people) on a brainstorming task
 They had 15 min. to generate ideas how to get more tourists to the
US. Ideas were judged based on their effectiveness & feasibility
 Conditions:
o Ethnically diverse condition
o All Anglo-American condition
 Results:
o Ideas of the heterogeneous groups were judged as
significantly more feasible and more effective
o Homogeneous groups reported marginally higher levels of
interpersonal attraction

Stages of group development

Are groups better at decision-making?
o General assumption: groups are better at decision making than individuals
 e.g., legal decisions, steering groups in companies…
o Groups can perform better
 If individuals are free to contribute their opinion
 If various perspectives are taken into account
 If group members are motivated to find the objectively best solution for a
problem
 If expert knowledge is shared and considered
o Process loss
 Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving,
productivity, idea generation
 Expert knowledge and valid data in a group has to be acknowledged
 Pitfalls:
 Rely on wrong person
 Failure to listen and communicate properly
 Failure to share unique information
 Stasser and Titus (1985)
 N = 156 undergraduate students decided in groups of 4 participants
who among several candidates was most qualified to be student
body president (correct decision: candidate a is the best choice)
 Conditions:
o Shared information condition: Groups of four participants
were given the same packet of information to read, all of
which indicated that candidate A was the best choice for
office
o Unique information condition: Each participant in the group
received a different packet of information. All participants
learned that Candidate A had the same four negative
qualities, but each learned that candidate A also had two
unique positive qualities

o
o
Results:
o Unique information conditioned focused on the information
they already shared collectively
o Decision quality decreased (24 vs. 83 % chose A)
Knowledge sharing
 Overcoming the failure to share information
 Group discussion should last long enough
 Group members should not share what their initial preferences are at
the outset of the discussion
 Transactive memory: assigning different group members to specific
areas of expertise so everybody knows who is responsible for which
information
Groupthink
 When, instead of considering the facts and finding a solution, maintaining
group cohesiveness and solidarity is the primary goal in a decision-making
process
 Creativity and individual contribution are reduced in order to avoid
conflict
 Antecedents
 The group is highly cohesive
o The group is valued and attractive, and people very much
want to be members
 Group isolation
o The group is isolated, and protected from hearing alternative
viewpoints
 A directive leader
o The leader controls the discussion and makes his or her
wishes known
 High stress
o The members perceive threats to the group, or the group is
under high pressure to reach a decision
 Poor decision-making procedures
o No standard methods to consider alternative viewpoints
 Symptoms
 Illusion of invulnerability
o The group feels invincible and can do no wrong
 Belief in the moral correctness of the group
o “God is on our side”
 Stereotyped views outside the group
o Opposing sides are viewed in a simplistic, stereotyped
manner
 Self-censorship
o People decide not to voice opinions to not “rock the boat”
 Direct pressure on dissenters to conform
o If people do voice contrary opinions, they are pressured by
others



Illusion of unanimity
o An illusion is created that everyone agrees e.g., by not asking
people known to disagree
 Mindguards
o Group members protect the leader from contrary viewpoints
Consequences
 Incomplete survey of alternatives
o The group fails to consider all other possible viewpoints and
outcomes
 Failure to examine the risks of the favoured alternative
o Discussion focuses on the good things expected to happen,
at expense of considering bad things that might happen
 Poor information search
o The group selectively relies upon information that supports
its viewpoint
 Failure to develop contingency plans
o Overly confident in its decision, the group does not consider
a Plan B (or C or D)
Ways to avoid groupthink (Janis, 1972)
 Each member must be a critical evaluator of the group’s course of
action, an open climate of giving and accepting criticism should be
encouraged by the leader
 Leaders should be impartial and refrain from stating their personal
preferences at the outset of group discussion; they should limit
themselves initially to fostering open inquiry
 Set up parallel groups, working on the same policy question under
different leaders
 Each member of the group should privately discuss current issues
and options with trusted associates outside the group and report
back their reactions
 Different outside experts should be brought in from time to time to
challenge the views of the core members

o
There should be one or more devil’s advocates during every group
meeting
 Second chance meetings should be held to reconsider the decision
once it has been reached and before it is made public
Group polarization
 The process by which a group’s initial average position becomes more
extreme following group interaction
 Group polarization results in an extremely conservative or risk seeking
decision depending on the direction towards most people in the group are
leaning:
 Risky Shift
o Groups make riskier decisions than its members initial
tendency
 Cautious shift
o Initial tendencies to avoid risk are exaggerated
 Reasons for group polarization
 Persuasive arguments
o You might be exposed to persuasive arguments you hadn’t
thought of before
 Social comparison
o In an effort to fit in and be liked, many people then take a
position that is similar to everyone else’s but even just a little
bit more extreme
 General consequences of group polarization
 As a group becomes more polarized, the gap between opposing
views of other groups widens, leading to increased conflict and
division
o This can hinder effective communication, compromise, and
collaboration between groups with differing opinions
 However
o Group polarization can also have a positive influence, e.g.,
when salient group norms and values are prosocial
 Risky shift – Wallach, Kogan & Bem (1962)
 N = 218 university students were presented with 12 scenarios, e.g., a
low ranked participant in a national chess tournament, playing an
early match with the top favoured man, has the choice of attempting
or not trying a deceptive but risky manoeuvre which might lead to
quick victory if successful or almost certain defeat if it fails
 Conditions:
o Group condition: private decision, then group decision
o Individual condition: deciding alone each time
 Results:
o Group decisions exhibit greater risk taking than appears in
pre-discussion individual decisions
o No shift in risk taking level occurs over time in the absence of
the discussion process

Presence of others
o Social facilitation
 The tendency for people to perform better on simple tasks and worse on
complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual
performance can be evaluated
 Why does social facilitation occur?
 Presence of others increases physiological arousal (evaluation
apprehension, alertness)
 With higher arousal we can perform dominant responses well
(something well-practiced, i.e., we perform easy tasks well), but we
perform complex, not-well learned tasks worse
 Influence of Task Difficulty
 Easy task + mere presence of others – improved performance
 Difficult task + mere presence of others – poorer performance
o Social loafing
 The tendency to perform worse on simple and better on complex tasks, when
individuals are in the presence of others and their individual performance
cannot be evaluated
 Less evaluation apprehension = relaxing
 Influence of Task Difficulty
 Easy task + individual performance cannot be evaluated – poor
performance
 Difficult task + individual performance cannot be evaluated –
improved performance

Zajonc et al. (1969)
 N = 72 adult female cockroaches performed a maze and runway task
(escaping a light)
 Conditions:
o Social conditions: Other cockroaches are watching
o Alone conditions: No one is watching
 Results:
o The mere presence of others improves performance in the
simple maze
o In complex maze the opposite effect occurred
o
Deindividuation
 Loosening of behavioural constraints when people can´t be identified
 Refers to the state in which group or social identity dominates personal or
individual identity
 Under certain conditions, group norms become maximally accessible;
the only thing group members think about is what the other group
members around them are thinking, saying, and doing (Reicher,
1987)
 Utilized in the context of:
 Lynching
 Soldiers hide ID before fighting
 KKK
 Social media (online trolls)
 Deindividuation increased normative behaviour rather than antisocial
behaviour (Postmes & Spears, 1998)
Communications & Conflict



Aggression
o Behaviour intended to harm someone else
o Hostile aggression
 Is driven by feelings of anger, often stemming from threats to our self-esteem
or identity
 The goal is to hurt someone
o Instrumental aggression
 Intends to hurt someone as means to another goal e.g., to control other
people, or to obtain valuable resources
o Aggression often has its roots in a conflict
Conflict
o Occurs if people perceive their goals to be incompatible with those of others
o It is possible on different levels
 Individuals (who should clean the kitchen today?)
 Groups (e.g., labour union and company management, what are appropriate
wages and working conditions?)
 Nations (who is allowed to use this land?)
Social dilemma
o A situation in which the most beneficial action for each individual will, if chosen by all
individuals, produce a negative outcome for everyone involved
o



A social dilemma stimulates conflict by tempting individuals to act in their own
self-interest to the detriment of the group and its goals
o Conflict can arise for example when group members:
 Exploit a shared resource (resource depletion dilemma)
 Disagree on how to divide up resources (e.g., which procedures or norms to
follow)
 Do not contribute their share (public goods dilemma, free riding)
Nature of aggression & conflict
o Conflict is a common part of social life
o Conflicts frequently focus on mastery of material sources and social rewards
o Aggression is just one strategy among many others that humans use to attain
material sources and social rewards
 Other behaviour types also help to promote and maintain status and
resources (e.g., ability to form alliances, to learn from others, to cooperate)
Studying aggression
o Difficulties
 Ethical problems: Researchers cannot set up situations in which people
actually harm one another
 Social desirability: People are often unwilling to act aggressively when they
know they are being observed
o Often used techniques
 “Teacher” and “learner” paradigm (Buss, 1961)
 “Taste test” (McGregor et al., 1998)
o High correlation of findings from laboratory and aggressive behaviour in the field
Causes of aggression
o Counting Rewards and Costs
 Especially relevant for instrumental aggression
 Opportunity for gain & believe that aggression will lead to rewards
 Believe in own ability to carry out aggressive acts
 Perception of rewards and costs
o Threat to self-esteem or connectedness
 Often trigger hostile aggression
 Threats to self-esteem or connections to valued people: insults, derogation,
disrespect
 Presence of an audience
 Personality: low vs. high self-esteem and its stability
 Perceptual bias: Some individuals are also more likely than others to
interpret others’ acts as provocations
o Negative emotions
 Frustration Aggression Theory: Blocking of an important goal (= frustration)
inevitably leads to aggression
 But: According to more recent accounts, aggression is not the direct
result of the blocking of goals, but of the negative feelings that result
from it, e.g., anger, pain, fear, irritation
 A variety of conditions that create negative feelings: e.g., unpleasant heat,
painful cold, stressful noises, crowding, noxious odours, air pollution) can
trigger aggression
o




Social norms
 “Culture of honour”
Models of aggression
o Other people actions (also in media) may indicate that aggression is appropriate
 Laboratory findings (mostly examining short-term effects)
 People who watched a highly aggressive video gave other
participants stronger shocks on Buss’s “aggression machine”
(Bushman & Geen, 1990)
 Single exposure: Those who played a violent video game for 20
minutes were more aggressive one day later, if they were induced to
ruminate on the game (Bushman & Gibson, 2011)
 Longitudinal studies
 Participants who watched more TV violence at the age of 8 were
more likely to have been convicted for violent crimes by age of 30
(Huesmann, 1986)
 Aggressive acts in homes teach aggressive norms: Children who
experienced physical punishment are more likely to aggress in social
situations and to abuse their own children later
Cues of aggression
o The weapons effect
 Presence of weapons may increase the accessibility of thoughts related to
aggression (Berkowitz & LePage, 1967)
 Motorists stopped by police officers acted more aggressively when the
officers carried a weapon than when they did not (Boyanowsky & Griffiths,
1982)
Mode of thought influencing aggression
o Intuition
 Whatever is most easily to access has the greatest impact on the behaviour
 Salient properties of the situation grab our attention: e.g., rewards,
behaviour of models, threat to self-esteem
 When people process such situational aspects superficially, it can
increase the likelihood of aggressive behaviour
o Deliberation
 Careful thinking allows to find alternative solutions:
 E.g., talking the conflict over, compromising on a solution
 It also allows to find the most appropriate, rather than the most accessible,
interpretation of the situation
 Requires motivation and capacity
Factors limiting systematic thinking
o Emotional arousal
 The Weapon Effect is stronger when people are aroused and angered
(Berkowitz, 1993)
 Perceptual bias (tendency to interpret an event as an act of aggression) is
greater when people are anxious (Dodge & Somberg, 1987)
o



Alcohol use
 Reduces people’s capacity to process a wide range of information
 Reduces people’s concerns for factors that restrain aggression (potential
costs, social norms, expressions of pain from the victim)
 Persons are likely to base their actions on whatever is most immediately
obvious
o Time pressure
 When a decision must be made quickly, an initial tendency to aggress may
win more often
General aggression model (Anderson & Bushman, 2002)
o Person and situation factors influence people’s cognition, emotions, and arousal,
which in turn influence interpretations of the situation and decisions about
aggression
Aggression and conflict in groups
o Groups are more aggressive than individuals (Meier & Hinsz, 2004)
o Groups are more competitive than individuals (Wildschut & Insko, 2007)
 Salience of a group identity increases competitiveness / aggressiveness of the
group
 Groups offer social support for competitiveness offering a rationalization of
negative acts as a form of group loyalty
Realistic conflict theory (Sherif, 1966)
o According to this theory limited but valued resources (e.g., land, jobs, natural
resources, like oil, minerals, strategic waterway) lead to conflict between groups and
result in increased prejudice and discrimination
o Intergroup hostility can arise, as a result of conflicting goals “competition over scarce
resources could drive people to enmity; place a common obstacle in their way, and
they cooperate” (Sherif, 1966)
o Sherif (1961)
 N = 22; white 11-year-old boys were sent to s special remote summer camp
in Oklahoma (Robbers Cave State Park). Boys were split in 2 groups (Eagles &
Rattlers)
 Conditions:
 4-day series of competitions -> 2 day cool of period -> increased
contact -> forcing the groups to work together
 Results
 The boys tended to characterize their own in-group in very
favourable terms, and the other out-group in very unfavourable
terms


 Became stronger through contact
 Tension and prejudice were eased when working on common goals
o Taylor & Moriarty (1987)
 N = 56 white female students were tasked to recommend a therapy program
for a person vs. create an advertising slogan for a product
 Conditions:
 Cooperation: Proposals from the 2 groups will be combined to
produce the best solution, both groups would be rewarded
 Competition: One group that came up with the best idea would be
rewarded
 Results:
 Members of the competition group liked in-group members better
and disliked out-group members more
Relative deprivation theory (Crosby, 1976)
o Social comparison, not objective reality, determines how satisfied or dissatisfied
people are with what they have (Crosby, 1976; Smith, Stouffer and others, 1949)
 Egoistic relative deprivation = a sense that you are doing less well than other
individuals (Runciman, 1966)
 Fraternal relative deprivation = a sense that one’s group is not doing as well
as other groups (Runciman, 1966)
o Fraternal deprivation is much more likely to cause intergroup conflict than is egoistic
deprivation
Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1971)
o Social competition over social goods (e.g., respect, esteem): desire to see own group
as better than other groups
o People’s strivings for positive social identity may start intergroup conflict
o When competition for riches turns into competition for respect, winning becomes
everything

Conflict escalation
o
o
Group communications and interaction
 Polarization and Commitment to In-Group hardens
 Talking to the In-Group:
o Discussion with like-minded pushes group members toward
extreme views. Discussion itself makes people more
committed to their views: “If I argue so engaged, I must care
a lot about this issue.” (Self-perception theory, Bem, 1972)
o Dissonance reduction processes ensure that private attitudes
line up with public positions
 No contact with the “enemy”
o Demand on loyalty, solidarity and strict adherence to group
norms. Lack of interactions with the out-group widens the
gap between the groups and make empathy with the
out-group very unlikely
 Talking to the Out-Group: Threats
 Most people believe that threats increase their chances of getting
their way and tend to use them in communication with the other
group
o Actually, threats don’t do this but rather diminish the
willingness to compromise
 Vicarious Retribution
 Members of a group who were not themselves directly harmed by an
attack retaliating against members of the offending group, even if
these other members did not commit the original attack
 Coalition Formation: Others Choose Sides
 Polarization of multiple parties into 2 opposing sides
o Usually seen as a threatening action, causes fear and anger in
the other party and forces them to form own coalitions
Perceptual biases in conflict
 The in-group can do no wrong
 In-group is perceived as morally superior
 Moral disengagement to explain away the wrongdoing of the own
group



The out-group can do no right
 Each group tends to perceive themselves as a victim and the
out-group as capable of committing any evil, and therefore justifies
any action taken against them
 Reactive devaluation: Perceiving a proposed solution to a conflict
negatively simply because the out-group offers it
 The in-group is all-powerful
 Aggressive posturing may be perceived as a threat
 The focus on winning may lead to a distorted perception of winning’s
costs and a distorted perception of the situation
o Biased attributions for behaviour
 In-group motives are perceived as positive, but out-group motives are
perceived as negative
 In-group actions are correct and justified: e.g., a protection of our
rights, a measured defence against their hostile intentions
 When the out-group carries out exactly the same action, it is seen as
provocative: a clear instance of aggression
 In-group actions are perceived as dictated by situations, whereas out-group
actions as reflection of their character flaws
Reducing conflict
o Promote norms of non-aggression and prosocial norms
 Usually most effective in limiting aggression against other in-group members
o Re-think
 Try to see a situation in a different light before responding
 A third-party perspective on provocative events may allow to interpret the
provocation differently
o Promote empathy
o Promote cooperation by establishing a superordinate goal
o Create shared group identity / higher level common identity
o Highlight similarities
o Negotiation
o Individual group representatives instead of groups
 Being in a group can be deindividuating; group can produce more extreme
attitudes than an individual
 Single representatives from each side are better able to find a solution
o Build trust
 The expectation that others will act in a prosocial way during a social
interaction
 How to increase trust within a group?
 Increase communication
 Ensure equal opportunities and outcomes
Using communication to resolve conflict
o Negotiation
 “A form of communication between opposing sides in a conflict in which
offers and counteroffers are made, and a solution occurs only when both
parties agree.” (See Aronson et al., 2019, p. 291)
o

Integrative solution
 A solution to a conflict whereby each party gives up on issues, which are less
important to them, but are very important to the other party
o Problems with negotiation and integrative solutions
 Successful resolution requires sufficient time: Less integrative solutions under
time pressure (Harinck & De Dreu, 2004)
 People often tend to assume, that only one can win in a situation and don’t
realize, that a solution favourable for both parties is available
 People tend to distrust proposals made by the other side and to overlook
interests they have in common (Kong, Dirks, & Ferrin, 2014; O’Connor &
Carnevale, 1997)
 The more people have at stake in a negotiation, the more biased their
perceptions of their opponent
o Solutions
 Plan an adequate amount of time
 Use neutral mediator to solve disputes
 Mediators can arrange meeting agendas, times, and places so that
these details do not themselves become sources of conflict (Raven &
Rubin, 1926)
 Mediators are often in a better position to recognize that there are
mutually agreeable solutions to a conflict (Kressel & Pruitt, 1989;
Ross & LaCroix, 1996; Wall & Dunne, 2012)
 Break conflicts into sets of small, manageable issues
 Communication properties which help to establish trust
 Trust is more likely in face-to-face negotiations than in electronic
communication (like e-mail, texting, videoconferencing)
o A meta-analysis of several studies found that negotiations
conducted over electronic media were more hostile and
resulted in lower profits than face to face negotiations
(Stuhlmacher & Citera, 2005)
o Successful negotiations
 Keep in mind that an integrative solution is often available
 Try to gain the trust of the other party
 Try taking the other person ‘s perspective: The way you are construing the
situation is not necessarily the same as the way the other party construes it
 Communicate your interest in an open manner the thing which is most
important for you is not necessarily the most important thing for the other
party
 Bringing in a neutral third party can be helpful if direct communication
between the opposing parties is not working out
Prosocial behaviour
o Prosocial Behaviour: behaviour intended to benefit someone
o Altruism: Prosocial behaviour which is driven by the desire to benefit others for their
own sake, rather than for personal rewards
o Cooperation: two or more people are working together to achieve a common goal,
which will benefit all involved people
o
What determines if we help
o
Darley & Latané (1968)
 Participants (59 female, 13 male students) were led to believe that they
would take part in a group discussion. Participants were told that to
guarantee anonymity, each participant was seated alone in an intercom
equipped cubicle
 In reality, there was only one “real” participant, believing that one, two, or
five other group members (depending on the condition), represented by
audio recordings, were also present
 After some time, the participant heard one of the other “participants,” who
had mentioned a susceptibility to epilepsy, begins to have a seizure. Having
increasing difficulties to speak, he asked for help and then went silent
 Results:
 The more other people the participants believed to be present, the
less likely they were to help
 Of those who thought that four other potential helpers were present,
only 62% came to help
o Diffusion of responsibility: when other people are present,
each person feels less responsible for helping than when
alone
Increasing prosocial behaviour
 Reduce ambiguity: Make the need for help and cooperation clear
 Obvious interpretation of a situation makes help more likely
 Foster an altruistic self-concept
 When people attribute a helpful act to an internal motivation (their
self-concept), they are more likely to help in the future
 Teach norms that support helping and cooperation
 Explicit teaching, personal examples or even examples in the media
promotes prosocial behaviour
 Activate prosocial norms
 E.g., giving a hint can activate the norm of social responsibility
 Presenting symbols that are associated with competition resp.
cooperation increased the likelihood of associated behaviour (Wong
& Hong, 2005)
o

o
Infuse responsibility
 Focusing responsibility on specific people makes pressures to help
more insistent
 Promote identification with those who need help and cooperation
 Training people to feel compassion for individual others, and
perspective taking training increases helping behaviour
Potential downsides of receiving help
 If unable to reciprocate, feeling to owe a favour can be a problem
 Message the helper is more powerful, more able, or more in control than the
recipient
 Receiving help may trigger feelings of gratitude only when the recipient feels
at least partially in control of the outcome (Chow & Lowery, 2010)
 Dependency oriented (giving a man a fish) vs. autonomy-oriented help
(teaching a man to fish)
 Appropriate helping strategy depends on the situation and the relationship
between “helper” and recipient involved