@phdthesis{Rubo2019,
  author    = {Rubo, Marius},
  title     = {Social Attention in the Laboratory, in Real Life and in Virtual Reality},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-18845},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-188452},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Social attention is a ubiquitous, but also enigmatic and sometimes elusive phenomenon. We direct our gaze at other human beings to see what they are doing and to guess their intentions, but we may also absorb social events en passant as they unfold in the corner of the eye. We use our gaze as a discrete communication channel, sometimes conveying pieces of information which would be difficult to explicate, but we may also find ourselves avoiding eye-contact with others in moments when self-disclosure is fear-laden. We experience our gaze as the most genuine expression of our will, but research also suggests considerable levels of predictability and automaticity in our gaze behavior. The phenomenon's complexity has hindered researchers from developing a unified framework which can conclusively accommodate all of its aspects, or from even agreeing on the most promising research methodologies. The present work follows a multi-methods approach, taking on several aspects of the phenomenon from various directions. Participants in study 1 viewed dynamic social scenes on a computer screen. Here, low-level physical saliency (i.e. color, contrast, or motion) and human heads both attracted gaze to a similar extent, providing a comparison of two vastly different classes of gaze predictors in direct juxtaposition. In study 2, participants with varying degrees of social anxiety walked in a public train station while their eye movements were tracked. With increasing levels of social anxiety, participants showed a relative avoidance of gaze at near compared to distant people. When replicating the experiment in a laboratory situation with a matched participant group, social anxiety did not modulate gaze behavior, fueling the debate around appropriate experimental designs in the field. Study 3 employed virtual reality (VR) to investigate social gaze in a complex and immersive, but still highly controlled situation. In this situation, participants exhibited a gaze behavior which may be more typical for real-life compared to laboratory situations as they avoided gaze contact with a virtual conspecific unless she gazed at them. This study provided important insights into gaze behavior in virtual social situations, helping to better estimate the possible benefits of this new research approach. Throughout all three experiments, participants showed consistent inter-individual differences in their gaze behavior. However, the present work could not resolve if these differences are linked to psychologically meaningful traits or if they instead have an epiphenomenal character.},
  subject      = {Aufmerksamkeit},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Ahrens2020,
  author    = {Ahrens, Lea Marlen},
  title     = {The Role of Attentional Control and Fear Acquisition and Generalization in Social Anxiety Disorder},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-17162},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-171622},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Although Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is one of the most prevalent mental disorders, still little is known about its development and maintenance. Cognitive models assume that deviations in attentional as well as associative learning processes play a role in the etiology of SAD. Amongst others, deficits in inhibitory attentional control as well as aberrations during fear generalization, which have already been observed in other anxiety disorders, are two candidate mechanisms that might contribute to the onset and retention of SAD. However, a review of the literature shows that there is a lack of research relating to these topics. Thus, the aim of the present thesis was to examine in which way individuals with SAD differ from healthy controls regarding attentional control and generalization of acquired fear during the processing of social stimuli. Study 1 tested whether impairment in the inhibitory control of attention is a feature of SAD, and how it might be influenced by emotional expression and gaze direction of an interactional partner. For this purpose, individuals with SAD and healthy controls (HC) participated in an antisaccade task with faces displaying different emotional expressions (angry, neutral and happy) and gaze directions (direct and averted) serving as target stimuli. While the participants performed either pro- or antisaccades in response to the peripherally presented faces, their gaze behavior was recorded via eye-tracking, and ratings of valence and arousal were obtained. Results revealed that both groups showed prolonged latencies and increased error rates in trials with correct anti- compared to prosaccades. However, there were no differences between groups with regard to response latency or error rates, indicating that SAD patients did not exhibit impairment on inhibitory attentional control in comparison to HC during eye-tracking. Possible explanations for this finding could be that reduced inhibitory attentional control in SAD only occurs under certain circumstances, for example, when these individuals currently run the risk of being negatively evaluated by others and not in the mere presence of phobic stimuli, or when the cognitive load of a task is so high that it cannot be unwound by compensatory strategies, such as putting more effort into a task. As not only deviations in attentional, but also associative learning processes might be pathogenic markers of SAD, these mechanisms were further addressed in the following experiments. Study 2 is the first that attempted to investigate the generalization of conditioned fear in patients with SAD. To this end, patients with SAD and HC were conditioned to two neutral female faces serving as conditioned stimuli (CS+: reinforced; CS-: non-reinforced) and a fearful face paired with a loud scream serving as unconditioned stimulus (US). Fear generalization was tested by presenting morphs of the two faces (GS: generalization stimuli), which varied in their similarity to the original faces. During the whole experiment, self-report ratings, heart rate (HR) and skin conductance responses (SCR) were recorded. Results demonstrated that SAD patients rated all stimuli as less pleasant and more arousing, and overestimated the occurrence of the US compared to HC, indicating a general hyperarousal in individuals with SAD. In addition, ratings and SCR indicated that both groups generalized their acquired fear from the CS+ to intermediate GSs as a function of their similarity to the CS+. However, except for the HR data, which indicated that only SAD patients but not HC displayed a generalization response in this measure, most of the results did not support the hypothesis that SAD is characterized by overgeneralization. A plausible reason for this finding could be that overgeneralization is just a key characteristic of some anxiety disorders and SAD is not one of them. Still, other factors, such as comorbidities in the individuals with SAD, could also have had an influence on the results, which is why overgeneralization was further examined in study 3. The aim of study 3 was to investigate fear generalization on a neuronal level. Hence, high (HSA) and low socially anxious participants (LSA) underwent a conditioning paradigm, which was an adaption of the experimental design used study 2 for EEG. During the experiment, steady-state visually evoked potentials (ssVEPs) and ratings of valence and arousal were recorded. Analyses revealed significant generalization gradients in all ratings with highest fear responses to the CS+ and a progressive decline of these reactions with increasing similarity to the CS-. In contrast, the generalization gradient on a neuronal level showed highest amplitudes for the CS+ and a reduction in amplitude to the most proximal, but not distal GSs in the ssVEP signal, which might be interpreted as lateral inhibition in the visual cortex. The observed dissociation among explicit and implicit measures points to different functions of behavioral and sensory cortical processes during fear generalization: While the ratings might reflect an individual's consciously increased readiness to react to threat, the lateral inhibition pattern in the occipital cortex might serve to maximize the contrast among stimuli with and without affective value and thereby improve adaptive behavior. As no group differences could be observed, the finding of study 2 that overgeneralization does not seem to be a marker of SAD is further consolidated. In sum, the conducted experiments suggest that individuals with SAD are characterized by a general hyperarousal during the exposition to disorder-relevant stimuli as indicated by enhanced arousal and reduced valence ratings of the stimuli compared to HC. However, the hypotheses that reduced inhibitory attentional control and overgeneralization of conditioned fear are markers of SAD were mostly not confirmed. Further research is required to elucidate whether they only occur under certain circumstances, such as high cognitive load (e.g. handling two tasks simultaneously) or social stress (e.g. before giving a speech), or whether they are not characteristics of SAD at all. With the help of these findings, new interventions for the treatment of SAD can be developed, such as attentional bias modification or discrimination learning.},
  subject      = {Sozialangst},
  language  = {en}
}
@incollection{Bergengruen2020,
  author    = {Bergengruen, Maximilian},
  title     = {"Verborgene Mittel": Verfolgungswahn im Fall Woyzeck (B{\"u}chner/Clarus/Esquirol)},
  series = {Die Causes c{\´e}l{\`e}bres des 19. Jahrhunderts in Frankreich und Deutschland. Narrative Formen und anthropologische Funktionen},
  booktitle = {Die Causes c{\´e}l{\`e}bres des 19. Jahrhunderts in Frankreich und Deutschland. Narrative Formen und anthropologische Funktionen},
  publisher = {Harrassowitz Verlag},
  address   = {Wiesbaden},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-303307},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  pages     = {165-184},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {No abstract available.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Krause2020,
  author    = {Krause, Stefan},
  title     = {How stories influence the self: Antecedents, processes and consequences},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-20761},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-207611},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {The impact of stories in their ability to shape our view on the world has long been a central topic in communication science and media psychology. While reading a book or watching a movie, we are transported into story worlds and we identify with depicted protagonists. Several studies showed that high levels of transportation lead to greater story-consistent beliefs. Similar effects were found for identification. However, much less is known how and in which direction stories could affect the self. Five experimental studies were conducted and summarized in three manuscripts. Manuscript \#1 explored the moderating role of transportation that could shift one's self-perception towards traits of a depicted story character (assimilation) or away from him/her (contrast). Manuscript \#2 focused on downward social comparisons with a protagonist and possible contrast effects on participants' self-perception in relation to others, their motives and behavior. Thereby, the mediating role of transportation and identification were investigated. Finally, upward social comparison with a protagonist and related emotions (e.g., envy) that mediate possible effects on one's self perception and behavioral intentions were investigated in manuscript \#3. This dissertation project contributes to the literature on stories and the self. Consistent with previous work, assimilation effects were found for highly transported recipients. However, stories might also elicit contrast effects on recipients' selves and behavioral intentions that are opposite to a depicted character. Extending prior research, there were evidence that transportation and envy are important process variables explaining assimilation vs. contrast effects.},
  subject      = {Selbst},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Marker2020,
  author    = {Marker, Caroline},
  title     = {On a meta-level: Contributions of meta-analytic summaries in media psychological research},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-20917},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-209173},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {The rising use of new media has given rise to public discussions about their possible negative consequences. The social sciences have answered these concerns, providing many studies investigating different media types (e.g., social media, video games) and different related variables (e.g., psychological well-being, academic achievement). Within this big body of research, some research results have confirmed negative associations with frequent media use; other studies have found no or even positive relationships. With heterogeneous results, it is difficult to obtain a clear picture of the relationships and causalities of new media. The method of meta-analysis allows a synthesis of all existing data, providing an overall effect size as well as moderator and mediator analyses which might explain the heterogeneity. Three manuscripts present meta-analytic evidence related to a) the relationship between social media use and academic achievement, b) the relationship between video gaming and overweight, and c) the relationship between social media and psychological correlates. Manuscript \#1 found small relationships which depend on the usage pattern of social media. The relationship is positive, as long as social media use is related to school. Manuscript \#2 showed that children's and adolescents' video gaming is independent from their body mass, while adults who play more have a higher body mass. Manuscript \#3 summarized existing meta-analytic evidence that links social media with psychological wellbeing, academic achievement, and narcissism with small to moderate effect sizes. All three manuscripts underscore the potential of meta-analyses to synthesize previous research and to identify moderators. Although meta-analyses are not necessarily superior to other approaches because of their limitations (e.g. limited information or quality of primary studies) they are very promising for media psychology. Meta-analyses can reduce complexity and might be helpful for the communication of research results to the general public.},
  subject      = {Medienkonsum},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Schmitt2022,
  author    = {Schmitt, Nadine J. B.},
  title     = {What is integrity and how do we use it? - Enhancing the validity of integrity by reviewing integrity tests, expanding the nomological network, and reducing faking},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-26046},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260468},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {This dissertation focuses on the construct and criterion validity of integrity tests and aims to enhance both. To accomplish this goal, three approaches were adopted: First, an overview and systematic comparison of integrity tests was conducted with reference to the construction and application of the tests. Second, the nomological network of integrity tests was expanded with reference to honesty-humility and organizational citizenship behavior at their factor and facet level. Third, two promising methods to reduce faking on integrity tests were tested: the double rating method (Hui, 2001) and the indirect questioning technique. In line with previous research, the results of the overview and comparison of integrity measures confirmed that integrity tests are multidimensional and heterogenous. A clear definition of integrity is urgently needed. The personality trait of honesty-humility and its facets of fairness, and modesty revealed the most significant relationships to integrity. Moreover, organizational citizenship behavior and its facets of altruism, conscientiousness, and sportsmanship were found to significantly relate to integrity. Furthermore, integrity tests were able not only to predict organizational citizenship behavior but also to incrementally predict job performance and organizational citizenship behavior beyond the factor and facet level of the personality traits of conscientiousness and honesty-humility. In contrast to the indirect questioning technique, the double rating method, which includes an other rating and a self rating, was shown to be able to significantly reduce faking on integrity tests in an anonymous survey setting. This dissertation makes an important contribution to better explain the construct and nomological network of integrity, provide a more detailed view on integrity tests and their protection against faking, and expand the predictive and incremental validity of these tests. The implications for future research and practice are further discussed.},
  subject      = {Integrit{\"a}t},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Muth2023,
  author    = {Muth, Felicitas Vanessa},
  title     = {Step by step: Sense of agency for complex action-event sequences},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-30756},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-307569},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {From simply ringing a bell to preparing a five-course menu, human behavior commonly causes changes in the environment. Such episodes where an agent acts, thereby causing changes in their environment constitute the sense of agency. In this thesis four series of experi-ments elucidate how the sense of agency is represented in complex action-event sequences, thereby bridging a gap between basic cognitive research and real-life practice. It builds upon extensive research on the sense of agency in unequivocal sequences consisting of single ac-tions and distinct, predominantly auditory, outcomes. Employing implicit as well as explicit measures, the scope is opened up to multi-step sequences. The experiments show that it is worthwhile devoting more research to complex action-event sequences. With a newly introduced auditory measure (Chapter II), common phenomena such as temporal binding and a decrease in agency ratings following distorted feedback were replicated in multi-step sequences. However, diverging results between traditional implicit and explicit measures call for further inspection. Multisensory integration appears to gain more weight when multiple actions have to be performed to attain a goal leading to more accurate representations of the own actions (Chapter III). Additionally, freedom of choice (Chapter III) as well as early spatial ambiguity altered the perceived timing of outcomes, while late spatial ambi-guity (Chapter IV) and the outcome's self-relevance did not (Chapter V). The data suggests that the cognitive system is capable of representing multi-step action-event sequences implicitly and explicitly. Actions and sensory events show a temporal attraction stemming from a bias in the perception of outcomes. Explicit knowledge about causing an event-sequence facilitates neither feelings of control nor taking authorship. The results corroborate current theorizing on the un-derpinnings of temporal binding and the divergence between traditional implicit and explicit measures of the sense of agency. Promising avenues for further research include structured analyses of how much inferred causality contributes to implicit and explicit measures of agency as well as finding alternative measures to capture conceptual as well as non-conceptual facets of the agency experience with one method.},
  subject      = {Psychologie},
  language  = {en}
}