@article{WeissRodriguesHewig2022,
  author    = {Weiß, Martin and Rodrigues, Johannes and Hewig, Johannes},
  title     = {Big Five personality factors in relation to coping with contact restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic: a small sample study},
  series = {Social Sciences},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Social Sciences},
  number    = {10},
  issn      = {2076-0760},
  doi       = {10.3390/socsci11100466},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-290556},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {To slow down the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, countries worldwide severely restricted public and social life. In addition to the physical threat posed by the viral disease (COVID-19), the pandemic also has implications for psychological well-being. Using a small sample (N = 51), we examined how Big Five personality traits relate to coping with contact restrictions during three consecutive weeks in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. We showed that extraversion was associated with suffering from severe contact restrictions and with benefiting from their relaxation. Individuals with high neuroticism did not show a change in their relatively poor coping with the restrictions over time, whereas conscientious individuals seemed to experience no discomfort and even positive feelings during the period of contact restrictions. Our results support the assumption that neuroticism is a vulnerability factor in relation to psychological wellbeing but also show an influence of contact restrictions on extraverted individuals.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ReisPfister2022,
  author    = {Reis, Moritz and Pfister, Roland},
  title     = {Being Observed Does Not Boost Rule Retrieval},
  series = {Advances in Cognitive Psychology},
  volume    = {18},
  journal   = {Advances in Cognitive Psychology},
  number    = {3},
  doi       = {10.5709/acp-0359-8},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-301089},
  pages     = {173 -- 178},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Previous research, mainly focusing on the situational preconditions of rule violations, indicates that feelings of being watched by other agents promote rule compliance. However, the cognitive underpinnings of this effect and of rule violations in general have only attracted little scientific attention yet. In this study, we investigated whether cues of being observed not only reduce the likelihood of violating rules but also affect the underlying cognitive processes of such behavior when still putting a rule violation into action. Therefore, we applied a motion-tracking paradigm in which participants could violate a simple stimulus-response mapping rule while being faced with pictures of either open or closed eyes. In line with prior research, temporal and spatial measures of the participants' movements indicated that violating this rule induced substantial cognitive conflict. However, conflict during rulebreaking was not moderated by the eye stimuli. This outcome suggests that rule retrieval constitutes an automatic process which is not or is only barely influenced by situational parameters. Moreover, our results imply that the effect of perceived observation on rule conformity is driven by normative influences on decision-making instead of social facilitation of dominant action tendencies.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{HoffmannKochHuestegge2022,
  author    = {Hoffmann, Mareike A. and Koch, Iring and Huestegge, Lynn},
  title     = {Are some effector systems harder to switch to? In search of cost asymmetries when switching between manual, vocal, and oculomotor tasks},
  series = {Memory \& Cognition},
  volume    = {50},
  journal   = {Memory \& Cognition},
  number    = {7},
  doi       = {10.3758/s13421-022-01287-1},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-324887},
  pages     = {1563-1577},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {In task-switching studies, performance is typically worse in task-switch trials than in task-repetition trials. These switch costs are often asymmetrical, a phenomenon that has been explained by referring to a dominance of one task over the other. Previous studies also indicated that response modalities associated with two tasks may be considered as integral components for defining a task set. However, a systematic assessment of the role of response modalities in task switching is still lacking: Are some response modalities harder to switch to than others? The present study systematically examined switch costs when combining tasks that differ only with respect to their associated effector systems. In Experiment 1, 16 participants switched (in unpredictable sequence) between oculomotor and vocal tasks. In Experiment 2, 72 participants switched (in pairwise combinations) between oculomotor, vocal, and manual tasks. We observed systematic performance costs when switching between response modalities under otherwise constant task features and could thereby replicate previous observations of response modality switch costs. However, we did not observe any substantial switch-cost asymmetries. As previous studies using temporally overlapping dual-task paradigms found substantial prioritization effects (in terms of asymmetric costs) especially for oculomotor tasks, the present results suggest different underlying processes in sequential task switching than in simultaneous multitasking. While more research is needed to further substantiate a lack of response modality switch-cost asymmetries in a broader range of task switching situations, we suggest that task-set representations related to specific response modalities may exhibit rapid decay.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{KiserGromerPaulietal.2022,
  author    = {Kiser, Dominik P. and Gromer, Daniel and Pauli, Paul and Hilger, Kirsten},
  title     = {A virtual reality social conditioned place preference paradigm for humans: Does trait social anxiety affect approach and avoidance of virtual agents?},
  series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality},
  volume    = {3},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality},
  issn      = {2673-4192},
  doi       = {10.3389/frvir.2022.916575},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-293564},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Approach and avoidance of positive and negative social cues are fundamental to prevent isolation and ensure survival. High trait social anxiety is characterized by an avoidance of social situations and extensive avoidance is a risk factor for the development of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Therefore, experimental methods to assess social avoidance behavior in humans are essential. The social conditioned place preference (SCPP) paradigm is a well-established experimental paradigm in animal research that is used to objectively investigate social approach-avoidance mechanisms. We retranslated this paradigm for human research using virtual reality. To this end, 58 healthy adults were exposed to either a happy- or angry-looking virtual agent in a specific room, and the effects of this encounter on dwell time as well as evaluation of this room in a later test without an agent were examined. We did not observe a general SCPP effect on dwell time or ratings but discovered a moderation by trait social anxiety, in which participants with higher trait social anxiety spent less time in the room in which the angry agent was present before, suggesting that higher levels of trait social anxiety foster conditioned social avoidance. However, further studies are needed to verify this observation and substantiate an association with social anxiety disorder. We discussed the strengths, limitations, and technical implications of our paradigm for future investigations to more comprehensively understand the mechanisms involved in social anxiety and facilitate the development of new personalized treatment approaches by using virtual reality.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WongPittig2022,
  author    = {Wong, Alex H. K. and Pittig, Andre},
  title     = {A dimensional measure of safety behavior: A non-dichotomous assessment of costly avoidance in human fear conditioning},
  series = {Psychological Research},
  volume    = {86},
  journal   = {Psychological Research},
  number    = {1},
  issn      = {1430-2772},
  doi       = {10.1007/s00426-021-01490-w},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-267688},
  pages     = {312-330},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Safety behavior prevents the occurrence of threat, thus it is typically considered adaptive. However, safety behavior in anxiety-related disorders is often costly, and persists even the situation does not entail realistic threat. Individuals can engage in safety behavior to varying extents, however, these behaviors are typically measured dichotomously (i.e., to execute or not). To better understand the nuances of safety behavior, this study developed a dimensional measure of safety behavior that had a negative linear relationship with the admission of an aversive outcome. In two experiments, a Reward group receiving fixed or individually calibrated incentives competing with safety behavior showed reduced safety behavior than a Control group receiving no incentives. This allowed extinction learning to a previously learnt warning signal in the Reward group (i.e., updating the belief that this stimulus no longer signals threat). Despite the Reward group exhibited extinction learning, both groups showed a similar increase in fear to the warning signal once safety behavior was no longer available. This null group difference was due to some participants in the Reward group not incentivized enough to disengage from safety behavior. Dimensional assessment revealed a dissociation between low fear but substantial safety behavior to a safety signal in the Control group. This suggests that low-cost safety behavior does not accurately reflect the fear-driven processes, but also other non-fear-driven processes, such as cost (i.e., engage in safety behavior merely because it bears little to no cost). Pinpointing both processes is important for furthering the understanding of safety behavior.},
  language  = {en}
}