Alle Publikationen
2018
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(2018): Verbal-spatial and visuospatial coding of power-space interactions. In: Consciousness and cognition, S. 151-160. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2018.05.003
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.05.003 Abstract: A power-space interaction, which denotes the phenomenon that people responded faster to powerful words when they are placed higher in a visual field and faster to powerless words when they are placed lower in a visual field, has been repeatedly found. The dominant explanation of this power-space interaction is that it results from a tight correspondence between the representation of power and visual space (i.e., a visuospatial coding account). In the present study, we demonstrated that the interaction between power and space could be also based on a verbal-spatial coding in absence of any vertical spatial information. Additionally, the verbal-spatial coding was dominant in driving the power-space interaction when verbal space was contrasted with the visual space.
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(2018): Transforming infant wellbeing. Research, policy and practice for the first 1001 critical days. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge
Abstract: Any system is most flexible while being built. Human brains under construction are designed to rapidly adapt to the family setting. Babies have no comparisons, and the quality of relationships is the prime component of their world. For the first years of life parents lend their brains to their child, sliding their unconscious into this growing mind. ‘From a basic biological perspective, the child’s neuronal system—the structure and functioning of the developing brain—is shaped by the parent’s more mature brain. This occurs within emotional communication’. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von 237
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(2018): On the interaction of social affect and cognition: empathy, compassion and theory of mind. In: Emotion-cognition interactions 19, S. 1-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.010
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.010 Abstract: Empathy, compassion and Theory of Mind (ToM) are central topics in social psychology and neuroscience. While empathy enables the sharing of others’ emotions and may result in empathic distress, a maladaptive form of empathic resonance, or compassion, a feeling of warmth and concern for others, ToM provides cognitive understanding of someone else's thoughts or intentions. These socio-affective and socio-cognitive routes to understanding others are subserved by separable, independent brain networks. Nonetheless they are jointly required in many complex social situations. A process that is critical for both, empathy and ToM, is self-other distinction, which is implemented in different temporoparietal brain regions. Thus, adaptive social behavior is a result of dynamic interplay of socio-affective and socio-cognitive processes.
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(2018) : Society and Knowledge In: Teraji, Shinji: The cognitive basis of institutions: A synthesis of behavioral and institutional economics: Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier (Perspectives in behavioral economics and the economics of behavior), S. 263-308
Abstract: This chapter deals with social order. Hayek’s thought largely rests on the concept of spontaneous order. Spontaneous orders in human affairs are patterns that arise as the unintended consequences of individual actions. The dissemination of knowledge is crucial in society. People live in a world of expectations about interactions with others’ actions. Rules are behavioral patterns that individuals expect each other to follow. Relying on rules is a device we have learned to use, because our reason is insufficient to master the detail of complex reality. If rules are recognized as recurrent patterns of behavior, individuals act according to rules of conduct. The diffusion of shared behavioral patterns is necessary to obtain social order. Shared rules facilitate decision-making in complex situations by limiting the range of circumstances to which individuals have to pay attention.
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(2018): Interventions for the treatment of theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia: Systematic literature review. In: Psychiatry research 267, S. 37-47. DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.05.001
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.05.001 Abstract: Theory of Mind (ToM) plays a central role in regulating social interactions and its impairment is consistently reported in schizophrenia. Regarding schizophrenia, ToM is usually discussed as a sub-domain of social cognition. Since social cognitive deficits have drawn the attention of researchers, a variety of novel treatment techniques and approaches targeting social cognitive deficits have been developed. Encouraging results have repeatedly been reported on the modifiability of social cognitive impairment through these techniques. However, emotional perception seems to be over-represented in these approaches at the expense of other areas, such as ToM. This article presents a systematic review on the social cognitive interventions of the last 10 years, which focused on the remediation of ToM or used techniques primarily focusing on one or more social cognitive domains other than ToM, but with hypothetical effects on it. The aim of our systematic review was to compare these intervention techniques in order to see how effective they are in the remediation of ToM, and to find the best techniques to ameliorate ToM deficits in schizophrenia. According to our findings targeted ToM intervention produced more improvement in ToM tasks, while data regarding non-ToM interventions showed contradictory results with limited effects on ToM.
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(2018): Moral cognition and its basis in social cognition and social regulation.. New York: Guilford Press, zuletzt geprüft am 25.04.2018
Abstract: What is the basis of moral cognition? Moral judgments are grounded in a number of cognitive and social cognitive processes, which guide the social regulation of behavior and are, in turn, constrained by such regulation to be fair and evidence-based. Human beings live complex social lives, composed of various types of relationships across nested social hierarchies, all structured by rights, rules, and obligations. However, selfish goals persist, and keeping individuals’ goals in line with community interests has become the primary challenge of modern morality. To meet this challenge, human societies have developed two major social-cultural tools: a vast network of rules, norms, and values and complex social practices of norm enforcement, such as blame, praise, apology, and reconciliation. This kind of social-cultural morality has to be taught, learned, and enforced by community members, even by the youngest among them. Acquiring norms likely benefits from early-appearing prefere nces for prosocial agents over antisocial agents, but socially mature moral capacities rely heavily on nonmoral capacities: those of social cognition. Social cognition encompasses a hierarchy of interdependent concepts, processes, and skills that allow individuals to perceive, understand, and—most important for the present topic—evaluate one another. For example, norm enforcers infer the mental processes that generated a transgressive behavior (e.g., motive, belief, intention) before blaming the transgressor. The transgressor must likewise infer the mental processes that generated the social act of blaming (e.g., the norm enforcer’s goals, knowledge, and power of enforcing sanctions) when deciding to deny or admit, maintain or correct the norm-violating behavior. These, then, are the phenomena this chapter aims to illuminate. We show how the elements of social cognition ground people’s moral cognition and how social and moral cognition together guide the social regul ation of behavior by moral norms. We aim to identify the concepts, mechanisms, and practices that go into making various kinds of moral judgments and the forms and functions of socially expressing those judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von: 4
2017
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(2017): Motivated cognition and fairness. Insights, integration, and creating a path forward. In: The Journal of applied psychology 102 (6), S. 867-889. DOI: 10.1037/apl0000204
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28277729 Abstract: How do individuals form fairness perceptions? This question has been central to the fairness literature since its inception, sparking a plethora of theories and a burgeoning volume of research. To date, the answer to this question has been predicated on the assumption that fairness perceptions are subjective (i.e., "in the eye of the beholder"). This assumption is shared with motivated cognition approaches, which highlight the subjective nature of perceptions and the importance of viewing individuals arriving at those perceptions as active and motivated processors of information. Further, the motivated cognition literature has other key insights that have been less explicitly paralleled in the fairness literature, including how different goals (e.g., accuracy, directional) can influence how individuals process information and arrive at their perceptions. In this integrative conceptual review, we demonstrate how interpreting extant theory and research related to the formation of fairness perceptions through the lens of motivated cognition can deepen our understanding of fairness, including how individuals' goals and motivations can influence their subjective perceptions of fairness. We show how this approach can provide integration as well as generate new insights into fairness processes. We conclude by highlighting the implications that applying a motivated cognition perspective can have for the fairness literature and by providing a research agenda to guide the literature moving forward. (PsycINFO Database Record
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(2017): The effects of cognitive biases and imperfectness in long-term robot-human interactions. Case studies using five cognitive biases on three robots. In: Cognitive Systems Research 43, S. 266-290. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogsys.2016.07.007
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2016.07.007 Abstract: The research presented in this paper demonstrates a model for aiding human-robot companionship based on the principle of ‘human’ cognitive biases applied to a robot. The aim of this work was to study how cognitive biases can affect human-robot companionship in long-time. In the current paper, we show comparative results of the experiments using five biased algorithms in three different robots such as ERWIN, MyKeepon and MARC. The results were analysed to determine what difference if any of biased vs unbiased interaction has on the interaction with the robot and if the participants were able to form any kind of ‘preference’ towards the different algorithms. The experimental presented show that the participants have more of a preference towards the biased algorithm interactions than the robot without the bias.
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(2017): As You Sow, So Shall You Reap. Gender-Role Attitudes and Late-Life Cognition. In: Psychological science 28 (9), S. 1201-1213. DOI: 10.1177/0956797617708634
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28737096 Abstract: Some studies have found that women outperform men in episodic memory after midlife. But is this finding universal, and what are the reasons? Gender differences in cognition are the result of biopsychosocial interactions throughout the life course. Social-cognitive theory of gender development posits that gender roles may play an important mediating role in these interactions. We analyzed country differences in the gender differential in cognition after midlife using data from individuals age 50 and above ( N = 226,661) from 27 countries. As expected, older women performed relatively better in countries characterized by more equal gender-role attitudes. This result was robust to cohort differences as well as reverse causality. The effect was partially mediated by education and labor-force participation. Cognition in later life thus cannot be fully understood without reference to the opportunity structures that sociocultural environments do (or do not) provide. Global population aging raises the importance of understanding that gender roles affect old-age cognition and productivity. zitiert von 3
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(2017): Implicit moral evaluations. A multinomial modeling approach. In: Cognition 158, S. 224-241. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.10.013
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27865113 Abstract: Implicit moral evaluations-i.e., immediate, unintentional assessments of the wrongness of actions or persons-play a central role in supporting moral behavior in everyday life. Yet little research has employed methods that rigorously measure individual differences in implicit moral evaluations. In five experiments, we develop a new sequential priming measure-the Moral Categorization Task-and a multinomial model that decomposes judgment on this task into multiple component processes. These include implicit moral evaluations of moral transgression primes (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Speeded response deadlines reduced Intentional Judgment but not Unintentional Judgment (Experiment 1). Unintentional Judgment was stronger toward moral transgression primes than non-moral negative primes (Experiments 2-4). Intentional Judgment was associated with increased error-related negativity, a neurophysiological indicator of behavioral control (Experiment 4). Finally, people who voted for an anti-gay marriage amendment had stronger Unintentional Judgment toward gay marriage primes (Experiment 5). Across Experiments 1-4, implicit moral evaluations converged with moral personality: Unintentional Judgment about wrong primes, but not negative primes, was negatively associated with psychopathic tendencies and positively associated with moral identity and guilt proneness. Theoretical and practical applications of formal modeling for moral psychology are discussed.
Keywords: Adult, Cerebral Cortex/physiology, Cognition/physiology, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Female, Guilt, Humans, Individuality, Intention, Judgment/physiology, Kognitionswissenschaften, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Moral, Morals, Neuropsychological Tests, Personality, Personality Assessment, science direct, Shame, Social Perception -
(2017): Learning from moral inconsistency. In: Cognition 167, S. 46-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.006
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28522269 Abstract: Moral inconsistency is an understudied phenomenon in cognitive moral psychology and deserves in depth empirical study. Moral inconsistency, as understood here, is not formal inconsistency but inconsistency in moral emotion and belief in response to particular cases. It occurs when persons treat cases as morally different that are really morally the same, even from their moral perspective. Learning to recognize and avoid such moral inconsistency in non-trivial but is a form of moral learning that complements and enhances other psychological and social mechanisms through which persons learn how to apply shared moral norms when their applications are uncertain and threaten to lapse into moral inconsistency. The same psychological process also can function to revise current moral norms when their straightforward applications are morally inconsistent with more basic moral commitments. Through this moral learning and related kinds, people can learn how to identify issues of moral priority when moral norms conflict and, when necessary, how to revise their moral norms. The recent revolution in dominant moral norms around gay sex and gay marriage in Europe and North America provides a possible illustration. When coupled with other modes of moral learning in the context of ambiguous but deeply rooted moral norms, such as those of sanctity and authority, reflection on moral inconsistency can help to justify this large-scale moral change, even among those who find gay sex, by its nature, morally repugnant. zitiert von: 3
Keywords: Emotions, Humans, Kognitionswissenschaften, Learning, Lerntheorien, Moral, Morals, science direct, Social Norms -
(2017): They Love Me, They Love Me Not?. Social Power Shapes Expectations of Acceptance and Concerns about Rejection. In: Social Cognition 35 (5), S. 563-584. DOI: 10.1521/soco.2017.35.5.563
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2017.35.5.563 Abstract: Four studies tested the overriding hypothesis that an actor’s high relative to low social power enhances the actor’s expectations of social acceptance, and attenuates his or her concerns about social rejection, from others. Study 1 yielded correlational support for this hypothesis, while Studies 2 and 3 produced causal evidence. Study 3 also suggested that actor-power effects on acceptance expectations and rejection concerns emerge in relation to both opposite-power counterparts and others in general, though the effects tend to be stronger for the former. Finally, Study 4 confirmed that our effects are driven at least partly by an actor’s power, though at times in interaction with the high or low power of potential sources of acceptance/ rejection. The present studies extend a growing literature on power’s effects on processes and phenomena related to social acceptance and rejection. We discuss limitations, implications, and future directions. (PsycINFO Database R ecord (c ) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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(2017): Moral learning. Psychological and philosophical perspectives. In: Cognition 167, S. 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.06.008
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28629599 Abstract: The past 15years occasioned an extraordinary blossoming of research into the cognitive and affective mechanisms that support moral judgment and behavior. This growth in our understanding of moral mechanisms overshadowed a crucial and complementary question, however: How are they learned? As this special issue of the journal Cognition attests, a new crop of research into moral learning has now firmly taken root. This new literature draws on recent advances in formal methods developed in other domains, such as Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning and other machine learning techniques. Meanwhile, it also demonstrates how learning and deciding in a social domain-and especially in the moral domain-sometimes involves specialized cognitive systems. We review the contributions to this special issue and situate them within the broader contemporary literature. Our review focuses on how we learn moral values and moral rules, how we learn about personal moral character and relationships, and the philosophical implications of these emerging models.
Keywords: Cognition, Judgment, Kognitionswissenschaften, Lerntheorien, Moral, Morals, Philosophy, PSYCHOLOGY, science direct -
(2017): Social Fear Learning. From Animal Models to Human Function. In: Trends in cognitive sciences 21 (7), S. 546-555. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2017.04.010
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28545935 Abstract: Learning about potential threats is critical for survival. Learned fear responses are acquired either through direct experiences or indirectly through social transmission. Social fear learning (SFL), also known as vicarious fear learning, is a paradigm successfully used for studying the transmission of threat information between individuals. Animal and human studies have begun to elucidate the behavioral, neural and molecular mechanisms of SFL. Recent research suggests that social learning mechanisms underlie a wide range of adaptive and maladaptive phenomena, from supporting flexible avoidance in dynamic environments to intergenerational transmission of trauma and anxiety disorders. This review discusses recent advances in SFL studies and their implications for basic, social and clinical sciences.
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(2017): The means/side-effect distinction in moral cognition: A meta-analysis.. In: Cognition (Vol.166), S. 314-327, zuletzt geprüft am 02.05.2018
Abstract: Experimental research suggests that people draw a moral distinction between bad outcomes brought about as a means versus a side effect (or byproduct). Such findings have informed multiple psychological and philosophical debates about moral cognition, including its computational structure, its sensitivity to the famous Doctrine of Double Effect, its reliability, and its status as a universal and innate mental module akin to universal grammar. But some studies have failed to replicate the means/byproduct effect especially in the absence of other factors, such as personal contact. So we aimed to determine how robust the means/byproduct effect is by conducting a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies (k = 101; 24,058 participants). We found that while there is an overall small difference between moral judgments of means and byproducts (standardized mean difference = 0.87, 95% CI 0.67–1.06; standardized mean change = 0.57, 95% CI 0.44–0.69; log odds ratio = 1.59, 95% CI 1.15–2.02), the mean effect size is primarily moderated by whether the outcome is brought about by personal contact, which typically involves the use of personal force. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von: 3
Keywords: Grammar, Kognitionswissenschaften, Linguistics, Moral, Metaanalyse, Morality, Social Cognition -
(2017): Can only one person be right? The development of objectivism and social preferences regarding widely shared and controversial moral beliefs. In: Cognition 167, S. 78-90. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.05.014
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27260661 Abstract: Prior work has established that children and adults distinguish moral norms (e.g., hitting is wrong) from conventional norms (e.g., wearing pajamas to school is wrong). Specifically, moral norms are generally perceived as universal across time and space, similar to objective facts. We examined preschoolers’ and adults’ perceptions of moral beliefs alongside facts and opinions by asking whether only one person could be right in the case of disagreements. We also compared perceptions of widely shared moral beliefs (e.g., whether it is better to pull someone’s hair or share with someone) and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., whether it is better to help someone with a project or make cookies for someone). In Studies 1 and 2, preschoolers and adults were more likely to judge that only one person could be right in the case of widely shared versus controversial moral beliefs, treating the former as more objective or fact-like. Children were also more likely than adults t o say th at only one person could be right in a moral disagreement. Study 2 additionally revealed that adults were more likely than children to report preferring individuals who shared their controversial moral beliefs. Study 3 replicated these patterns using a different sample of widely shared beliefs (e.g., whether it is okay to mock a poor classmate) and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., whether it is okay to tell small, prosocial lies). While some aspects of moral cognition may depend on abundant social learning and cognitive development, the perception that disagreements about widely shared moral beliefs have only one right answer while disagreements about controversial moral beliefs do not emerges relatively early. We discuss implications for moral learning and social preferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved) zitiert von: 10
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(2017): Familiarity, Priming, and Perception in Similarity Judgments. In: Cognitive Science 41 (6), S. 1450-1484. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12418
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27766669 Abstract: We present a novel way of accounting for similarity judgments. Our approach posits that similarity stems from three main sources-familiarity, priming, and inherent perceptual likeness. Here, we explore each of these constructs and demonstrate their individual and combined effectiveness in explaining similarity judgments. Using these three measures, our account of similarity explains ratings of simple, color-based perceptual stimuli that display asymmetry effects, as well as more complicated perceptual stimuli with structural properties; more traditional approaches to similarity solve one or the other and have difficulty accounting for both. Overall, our work demonstrates the importance of each of these components of similarity in explaining similarity judgments, both individually and together, and suggests important implications for other similarity approaches. zitiert von 6
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(2017): That robot touch that means so much. On the psychological effects of human-robot touch. Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg-Essen. Online verfügbar unter http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:464-20170201-113456-7.
Abstract: Examined the physiological and psychological effects of human-robot touch. Four empirical studies were conducted that untangled the perception of human-robot touch referring to research on interpersonal touch, to test whether the media equation also applies to a fundamental interpersonal phenomenon such as touch. Therefore, the perception of different forms of human-robot touch with different robots in different interaction contexts were first considered by means of observation and evaluation of photographs. In addition, the underlying appraisal process that decides upon the final reaction to robot touch was theoretically and practically considered based on expectancy violations theory. In Studies 1-3 a total of 579 participants (aged 18-68 years) completed qualitative interviews (Study 1), questionnaires (Study 2), or an online experiment (Study 3). Studies 1 and 2 specifically examined the perception, interpretation, and evaluation as well as acceptance of HRT. Study 3 investigated the influence of context on the interpretation and evaluation of HRT. The questionnaires and surveys contained items from the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM), Need for Interpersonal Touch Scale (NFIPT), Touch Avoidance Measure (TAM), Negative Attitudes towards Robots Scale (NARS), Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS), Interpersonal Attraction Scale (IAS), and Attributional Confidence Scale (CL-7). In Study 4, actual touch initiated by a robot to 49 participants (aged 18-30 years) in a laboratory experiment were regarded and analyzed with respect to the impact of robot touch on participants' subjective evaluation, as well as on observable reactions as laughing, compliance and helping. Participants completed the SAM, NARS, NFIPT, Relational Communication Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction Inventory, Robot Anxiety Scale (RAS), and UCLA Loneliness Scale. In conclusion, influencing variables that determine the desirability of human-robot touch were revealed, namely characteristics of the robot (morphology and size), characteristics of the person (e.g., attitudes towards touch, attitudes towards robots, touch expectancies), the intimacy and direction of touch, i.e., who touches whom, and the meaning assigned to human-robot touch regarding relational interpretations of closeness and affection. Finally, positive emotional reactions to actual robot-initiated touch, and heightened compliance could be observed in Study 4.
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(2017): Magnitude estimation is influenced by social power. In: Journal of Numerical Cognition 3 (2), S. 147-163. DOI: 10.5964/jnc.v3i2.52
Abstract: Examined whether social power affects estimation performance of spatial magnitudes (i.e., line estimation). Previous research has shown that social power affects basic cognitive processes and even influences the way individuals perceive their physical environment. In the present study, participants estimated the line length of a given number in an increase and a decrease condition, after (low versus high) social power had been manipulated between participants via role assignment. Results show that in the increase condition, low-power participants overestimated line lengths, whereas such a bias was not observed for high-power participants. In contrast, the power manipulation did not affect performance in the decrease condition, suggesting that proportion judgement strategies might have been applied here, thereby reducing the overall bias in line estimations. It is concluded that findings support the notion that social power has an impact on the perception of the physical environment and that perception can depend on personal as well as situational factors. Moreover, it is argued that the present research suggests that high (compared to low) social power may help people to overcome biases in overestimating magnitudes.
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(2017): Nonverbal components of Theory of Mind in typical and atypical development. In: Early non-verbal forms of social cognition 48, S. 54-62. DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2016.11.001
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2016.11.001 Abstract: To successfully navigate the human social world one needs to realize that behavior is guided by mental states such as goals and beliefs. Humans are highly proficient in using mental states to explain and predict their conspecific’s behavior, which enables adjusting one’s own behavior in online social interactions. Whereas according to recent studies even young infants seem to integrate others’ beliefs into their own behavior, it is unclear what processes contribute to such competencies and how they may develop. Here we analyze a set of possible nonverbal components of theory of mind that may be involved in taking into account others’ mental states, and discuss findings from typical and atypical development. To track an agent’s belief one needs to (i) pay attention to agents that might be potential belief holders, and identify their focus of attention and their potential belief contents; (ii) keep track of their different experiences and their consequent beliefs, and (iii) to make behavioral predictions based on such beliefs. If an individual fails to predict an agent’s behavior depending on the agent’s beliefs, this may be due to a problem at any stage in the above processes. An analysis of the possible nonverbal processes contributing to belief tracking and their functioning in typical and atypical development aims to provide new insights into the possible mechanisms that make human social interactions uniquely rich.
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(2017): Learning a commonsense moral theory. In: Cognition 167, S. 107-123. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.03.005
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28351662 Abstract: We introduce a computational framework for understanding the structure and dynamics of moral learning, with a focus on how people learn to trade off the interests and welfare of different individuals in their social groups and the larger society. We posit a minimal set of cognitive capacities that together can solve this learning problem: (1) an abstract and recursive utility calculus to quantitatively represent welfare trade-offs; (2) hierarchical Bayesian inference to understand the actions and judgments of others; and (3) meta-values for learning by value alignment both externally to the values of others and internally to make moral theories consistent with one's own attachments and feelings. Our model explains how children can build from sparse noisy observations of how a small set of individuals make moral decisions to a broad moral competence, able to support an infinite range of judgments and decisions that generalizes even to people they have never met and situations they have not been in or observed. It also provides insight into the causes and dynamics of moral change across time, including cases when moral change can be rapidly progressive, changing values significantly in just a few generations, and cases when it is likely to move more slowly. zitiert von: 7
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(2017): Moral vindications. In: Cognition 167, S. 124-134. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.005
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28545629 Abstract: Psychologists and neuroscientists have recently been unearthing the unconscious processes that give rise to moral intuitions and emotions. According to skeptics like Joshua Greene, what has been found casts doubt on many of our moral beliefs. However, a new approach in moral psychology develops a learning-theoretic framework that has been successfully applied in a number of other domains. This framework suggests that model-based learning shapes intuitions and emotions. Model-based learning explains how moral thought and feeling are attuned to local material and social conditions. Philosophers can draw on these explanations, in some cases, in order to vindicate episodes of moral change. Explanations can support justifications by showing that they are not mere rationalizations. In addition, philosophical justifications are a fertile source for empirical hypotheses about the rational learning mechanisms that shape moral intuitions and emotions.
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(2017): Power increases anchoring effects on judgment. In: Social Cognition 35 (1), S. 40-53
Abstract: Four experiments test the impact of power (vs powerlessness) on anchoring effects. Anchoring refers to the tendency to assimilate one's judgment to a previously considered numeric standard. Based on the notion that power facilitates the activation of and reliance on accessible information, it is hypothesized that power increases numeric anchoring effects on judgment, compared to powerlessness. Across studies, consistent support for this idea was found: when testing estimations of factual values (Experiments 1 and 2), subjective evaluations (Experiment 3), and negotiation behavior (Experiment 4). The findings of Studies 2 to 4 qualify the dominant idea in power literature that power reduces conformity to others' opinion. Power increases conformity to others' opinion, if such opinion is presented as an anchor and therefore processed more automatically. These findings also have important methodological implications for power research. They show that differences in stimulus presentation can steer observed effects of power in opposite directions.
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(2017): Moral alchemy. How love changes norms. In: Cognition 167, S. 135-150. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.03.003
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28404207 Abstract: We discuss a process by which non-moral concerns (that is concerns agreed to be non-moral within a particular cultural context) can take on moral content. We refer to this phenomenon as moral alchemy and suggest that it arises because moral obligations of care entail recursively valuing loved ones' values, thus allowing propositions with no moral weight in themselves to become morally charged. Within this framework, we predict that when people believe a loved one cares about a behavior more than they do themselves, the moral imperative to care about the loved one's interests will raise the value of that behavior, such that people will be more likely to infer that third parties will see the behavior as wrong (Experiment 1) and the behavior itself as more morally important (Experiment 2) than when the same behaviors are considered outside the context of a caring relationship. The current study confirmed these predictions. zitiert von: 2
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(2017) : Culture, Brain, and Behavior In: Tibayrenc, Michel; Ayala, Francisco José (Hg.): On human nature: Biology, psychology, ethics, politics, and religion: Amsterdam; Boston; Heidelberg; London; New York; Oxford; Paris; San Diego; San Francisco; Singapore; Sydney; Tokio: Academic Press an imprint of Elsevier, S. 579-597
Abstract: This chapter discusses the reciprocal development of genes, brain, and culture in shaping significant aspects of social and political behavior. The interaction between biology and culture is mutually reciprocal and intertwined. Processes of neural plasticity allow cultural practices to inform brain development in a profoundly social context just as human imagination and invention can shift cultural practices over time. This chapter outlines work that has examined these interconnections and ways in which future research might study developmental effects to enlighten our understanding of important social and political phenomena, including the emergence and manifestation of mental illness and political polarization.