158 Angewandte Psychologie
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Ownership and usage of personal voice assistant devices like Amazon Echo or Google Home have increased drastically over the last decade since their market launch. This thesis builds upon existing computers are social actors (CASA) and media equation research that is concerned with humans displaying social reactions usually exclusive to human-human interaction when interacting with media and technological devices. CASA research has been conducted with a variety of technological devices such as desktop computers, smartphones, embodied virtual agents, and robots. However, despite their increasing popularity, little empirical work has been done to examine social reactions towards these personal stand-alone voice assistant devices, also referred to as smart speakers. Thus, this dissertation aims to adopt the CASA approach to empirically evaluate social responses to smart speakers. With this goal in mind, four laboratory experiments with a total of 407 participants have been conducted for this thesis. Results show that participants display a wide range of social reactions when interacting with voice assistants. This includes the utilization of politeness strategies such as the interviewer-bias, which led to participants giving better evaluations directly to a smart speaker device compared to a separate computer. Participants also displayed prosocial behavior toward a smart speaker after interdependence and thus a team affiliation had been induced. In a third study, participants applied gender stereotypes to a smart speaker not only in self-reports but also exhibited conformal behavior patterns based on the voice the device used. In a fourth and final study, participants followed the rule of reciprocity and provided help to a smart speaker device that helped them in a prior interaction. This effect was also moderated by subjects’ personalities, indicating that individual differences are relevant for CASA research. Consequently, this thesis provides strong empirical support for a voice assistants are social actors paradigm. This doctoral dissertation demonstrates the power and utility of this research paradigm for media psychological research and shows how considering voice assistant devices as social actors lead to a more profound understanding of voice-based technology. The findings discussed in this thesis also have implications for these devices that need to be carefully considered both in future research as well as in practical design.
Emotional shifts are often a fundamental part of the narrative experience and engrained into the schematic structures of stories. Recent theoretical work suggests that these shifts are key for narrative influence and are interconnected with transportation, a known mechanism of narrative effects. Empirical research examining this proposition is still scarce, inconclusive, and lacking measures that assess the experience of emotional shifts throughout a narrative to explain effects. This thesis aims to contribute to this research lacuna and investigates the link between emotional shifts, transportation, and story-consistent outcomes using different methods to measure emotional shifts in the moment they occur (Manuscript #1 and #2), and using various narrative stimuli (audiovisual, written, auditive).
Manuscript #1 uses real-time-response (RTR) measurement to examine the relationship of valence shifts experienced during film viewing with transportation and post-exposure self-reported emotional flow. Manuscript #2 reports a pilot study and two experiments in which a self-probed emotional retrospection task is used to measure the number and intensity of emotional shifts during reading. I investigate the effect of reviews on transportation, the link between transportation and emotional shifts, and their respective associations with story-consistent attitudes, social sharing intentions, and donation behavior. In Manuscript #3, narrative structures are manipulated. Two experiments examine the effects of audio stories with shifting (positive-negative-positive) vs. positive-only emotional trajectories on the experience of happiness- and sadness-shifts, transportation, and post-exposure emotional flow.
Transportation was positively linked to valence shifts (M#1), and the number and intensity of emotional shifts (M#2), and emotional flow (M#1, M#3). In M#3, transportation was predicted by shifts in happiness, but not sadness. Emotional flow was linked to shifts in happiness, sadness, and RTR valence (M#1, M#3). Emotional shifts and transportation were associated with social sharing intentions, but only transportation was linked to some story-consistent attitudes (affective attitudes in particular).
With the continuous development of artificial intelligence, there is an effort to let the expressed mind of robots resemble more and more human-like minds. However, just as the human-like appearance of robots can lead to feelings of aversion to such robots, recent research has shown that the apparent mind expressed by machines can also be responsible for their negative evaluations. This work strives to explore facets of aversion evoked by machines with human-like mind (uncanny valley of mind) within three empirical projects from a psychological point of view in different contexts, including the resulting consequences.
In Manuscript #1, the perspective of previous work in the research area is reversed and thus shows that humans feel eeriness in response to robots that can read human minds, a capability unknown from human-human interaction. In Manuscript #2, it is explored whether empathy for a robot being harmed by a human is a way to alleviate the uncanny valley of mind. A result of this work worth highlighting is that aversion in this study did not arise from the manipulation of the robot’s mental capabilities but from its attributed incompetence and failure. The results of Manuscript #3 highlight that status threat is revealed if humans perform worse than machines in a work-relevant task requiring human-like mental capabilities, while higher status threat is linked with a higher willingness to interact, due to the machine’s perceived usefulness.
In sum, if explanatory variables and concrete scenarios are considered, people will react fairly positively to machines with human-like mental capabilities. As long as the machine’s usefulness is palpable to people, but machines are not fully autonomous, people seem willing to interact with them, accepting aversion in favor of the expected benefits.
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.
Driving simulators are powerful research tools. Countless simulator studies have contributed to traffic safety over the last decades. Constant improvements in simulator technology call for a measureable scale to assess driving simulators with regard to their utility in human factors research. A promising psychological construct to do so is presence. It is commonly defined as the feeling of being located in a remote or virtual environment that seems to be real. Another aspect of presence describes the ability to act there successfully.
The main aim of this thesis is to develop a presence model dedicated to the application in driving simulators. Established models have been combined and extended in order to gain a comprehensive model of presence that allows understanding its emergence and deriving recommendations on how to design or improve driving simulators. The five studies presented in this thesis investigate specific postulated model components and their interactions. All studies deal with motorcycling or a motorcycle riding simulator as exemplary field of application.
The first study used a speed estimation task to investigate the contribution of different sensory cues to presence. While visualization plays a particularly important role, further improvements could be achieved by adding more consistent sensory stimuli to the virtual environment. Auditory, proprioceptive and vestibular cues have been subject to investigation. In the second study, the speed production method was applied. It confirmed the positive contribution of action to presence as predicted by psychocybernetic models. The third study dealt with the effect of training on presence. Hence, no positive effect was observed. The fourth study aimed at replicating previous findings on sensory fidelity and diversity in a more complex riding situation than only longitudinal vehicle control. The riders had to cross an unexpectedly appearing deep pit with the virtual motorcycle. The contribution of more consistent sensory stimulation on presence was successfully shown in this scenario, too. The final study was a real riding experiment that delivered reference values for the speed estimation capabilities of motorcycle riders. Besides higher variations in the simulator data, the general speed estimation performance was on a comparable level. Different measures, such as subjective ratings, behavioral responses, performance, and physiological reactions, have been applied as presence indicators.
These studies’ findings deliver evidence for the meaningful application of the proposed presence model in driving simulator settings. The results suggest that presence can be interpreted as a quality measure for perception in virtual environments. In line with psychocybernetic models, taking action, which is seen as controlling perception, enhances this quality even further. Describing the psychological construct of presence in a theoretical framework that takes the diversity of perception and action in driving simulator settings into account closes a gap in traffic psychological research.
Using color in user interface design is both art and science. Often, designers focus on aesthetic properties of color, but neglect that it also carries meaning and entails profound psychological consequences. Color psychology, filling this gap, is in its infancy, and lacks a theoretical approach that predicts and explains color-meaning associations shared by a large group of people in a large variety of contexts.
To amend this situation, this work develops Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Color (CMToC), which predicts and explains cross-cultural and experience-based semantic color associations. The theory is based on the idea from cognitive linguistics that the study of metaphorical language provides valuable insights into our mental models involving color. A discussion of three types of metaphors that cover associations with physical and abstract concepts in light of existing empirical evidence provides the basis for deriving empirical research questions.
The first research question addresses the use of color for conveying physical information like weight in user interfaces. The results of four online surveys involving a total of 295 German and Japanese participants show the relative impact of hue, saturation and brightness for associations with 16 physical properties. Two thirds of these color associations were correctly predicted by CMToC. Participants frequently matched physical properties to colors based on sensorimotor correspondences and participants of both cultures did not considerably vary in their performance.
The second research question addresses the use of color for conveying abstract information like importance in user interfaces. In one experimental study, a total of 75 German and Japanese participants validated color-to-abstract mappings in form of color population stereotypes like important is dark. The majority of these color associations (86%) were correctly predicted by CMToC. Again, participants of both cultures did not considerably vary in their performance.
The third research question addresses whether predicted color associations with physical and abstract information are processed automatically as a precondition for intuitive use. The results of three studies involving a total of 85 German and Japanese participants show on the example of temperature that color automatically influences the identification speed of related physical properties, but not vice versa. Color and abstract information were not automatically associated.
As a result of these studies it can be concluded that predictions of CMToC are cross-culturally valid for user interface design. Derived implicit associations with physical properties and explicit associations with abstract concepts can inform design decisions in both hard- and software user interface design.
Costly signaling with mobile devices: An evolutionary psychological perspective on smartphones
(2016)
In the last decade, mobile device ownership has largely increased. In particular, smartphone ownership is constantly rising (A. Smith, 2015; Statista, 2016a), and there is a real hype for luxury brand smartphones (Griffin, 2015). These observations raise the question of which functions smartphones serve in addition to their original purposes of making and receiving calls, searching for information, and organizing. Beyond these obvious functions, studies suggest that smartphones express fashion, lifestyle, and one’s economic status (e.g., Bødker et al., 2009; Statista, 2016b; Vanden Abeele, Antheunis, & Schouten, 2014). Specifically, individuals seem to purchase and use conspicuous luxury brand smartphones to display and enhance status (D. Kim et al., 2014; Müller-Lietzkow et al., 2014; Suki, 2013). But how does owning a conspicuous, high-status smartphone contribute to status, and which benefits may these status boosts provide to their owners? From an evolutionary perspective, status carries a lot of advantages, particularly for males; high status grants them priority access to resources and correlates with their mating success (van Vugt & Tybur, 2016). In this sense, research suggests that men conspicuously display their cell phones to attract mates and to distinguish themselves from rivals (Lycett & Dunbar, 2000). In a similar vein, evolutionarily informed studies on conspicuous consumption indicate that the purchase and display of conspicuous luxuries (including mobile phones and smartphones) relate to a man’s interest in uncommitted sexual relationships and enhance his desirability as a short-term mate (Hennighausen & Schwab, 2014; Saad, 2013; Sundie et al., 2011). Drawing on these findings, this doctoral dissertation investigated how a man is perceived given that he is an owner of a high-status (vs. nonconspicuous, low-status) smartphone as a romantic partner and male rival. This was done in three experiments. In addition, it was examined how male conspicuous consumption of smartphones interacted with further traits that signal a man’s mate quality, namely facial attractiveness (Studies 1 and 2) and social dominance (Study 3). Study 1 revealed that men and women perceived a male owner of a conspicuous smartphone as a less desirable long-term mate and as more inclined toward short-term mating. Study 2 replicated these results and showed that men and women assigned traits that are associated with short-term mating (e.g., low loyalty, interest in flirts, availability of tangible resources) to a male owner of a conspicuous smartphone and perceived him as a stronger male rival and mate poacher, and less as a friend. The results of Study 2 further suggested that specifically more attractive men might benefit from owning a conspicuous smartphone in a short-term mating context and might be hence considered as stronger male rivals. Study 3 partially replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 pertaining to the effects of owning a conspicuous smartphone. Study 3 did not show different effects of conspicuous consumption of smartphones on perceptions of a man dependent on the level of his social dominance.
To conclude, the findings of this doctoral dissertation suggest that owning a conspicuous, high-status smartphone might not only serve proximate functions (e.g., making and receiving calls, organization) but also ultimate functions, which relate to mating and reproduction. The results indicate that owning a conspicuous smartphone might yield benefits for men in a short-term rather than in a long-term mating context. Furthermore, more attractive men appear to benefit more from owning a conspicuous smartphone than less attractive men. These findings provide further insights into the motivations that underlie men’s purchases and displays of conspicuous, high-status smartphones from luxury brands that reach beyond the proximate causes frequently described in media and consumer psychological research. By applying an evolutionary perspective, this doctoral dissertation demonstrates the power and utility of this research paradigm for media psychological research and shows how combining a proximate and ultimate perspective adds to a more profound understanding of smartphone phenomena.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by symptoms of inattentiveness and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Besides, increasing evidence points to ADHD patients showing emotional dysfunctions and concomitant problems in social life. However, systematic research on emotional dysfunctions in ADHD is still rare, and to date most studies lack conceptual differentiation between emotion processing and emotion regulation. The aim of this thesis was to systematically investigate emotion processing and emotion regulation in adult ADHD in a virtual reality paradigm implementing social interaction. Emotional reactions were assessed on experiential, physiological, and behavioral levels.
Experiment 1 was conducted to develop a virtual penalty kicking paradigm implying social feedback and to test it in a healthy sample. This paradigm should then be applied in ADHD patients later on. Pleasant and unpleasant trials in this paradigm consisted of hits respectively misses and subsequent feedback from a virtual coach. In neutral trials, participants were teleported to different spots of the virtual stadium. Results indicated increased positive affectivity (higher valence and arousal ratings, higher zygomaticus activations, and higher expression rates of positive emotional behavior) in response to pleasant compared to neutral trials. Reactions to unpleasant trials were contradictory, indicating increased levels of both positive and negative affectivity, compared to neutral trials. Unpleasant vs. neutral trials revealed lower valence ratings, higher arousal ratings, higher zygomaticus activations, slightly lower corrugator activations, and higher expression rates of both positive and negative emotional behavior. The intensity of emotional reactions correlated with experienced presence in the virtual reality.
To better understand the impact of hits or misses per se vs. hits or misses with coach feedback healthy participants’ emotional reactions, only 50% of all shots were followed by coach feedback in experiment 2. Neutral trials consisted of shots over the free soccer field which were followed by coach feedback in 50 % of all trials. Shots and feedback evoked more extreme valence and arousal ratings, higher zygomaticus activations, lower corrugator activations, and higher skin conductance responses than shots alone across emotional conditions. Again, results speak for the induction of positive emotions in pleasant trials whereas the induction of negative emotions in unpleasant trials seems ambiguous. Technical improvements of the virtual reality were reflected in higher presence ratings than in experiment 1.
Experiment 3 investigated emotional reactions of adult ADHD patients and healthy controls after emotion processing and response-focused emotion regulation. Participants successively
went through an ostensible online ball-tossing game (cyber ball) inducing negative emotions, and an adapted version of the virtual penalty kicking game. Throughout cyber ball, participants were included or ostracized by two other players in different experimental blocks. Participants were instructed to explicitly show, not regulate, or hide their emotions in different experimental blocks. Results provided some evidence for deficient processing of positive emotions in ADHD. Patients reported slightly lower positive affect than controls during cyber ball, gave lower valence ratings than controls in response to pleasant penalty kicking trials, and showed lower zygomaticus activations than controls especially during penalty kicking. Patients in comparison with controls showed slightly increased processing of unpleasant events during cyber ball (higher ratings of negative affect, especially in response to ostracism), but not during penalty kicking. Patients showed lower baseline skin conductance levels than controls, and impaired skin conductance modulations. Compared to controls, patients showed slight over-expression of positive as well as negative emotional behavior. Emotion regulation analyses revealed no major difficulties of ADHD vs. controls in altering their emotional reactions through deliberate response modulation. Moreover, patients reported to habitually apply adaptive emotion regulation strategies even more frequently than controls. The analyses of genetic high-risk vs. low-risk groups for ADHD across the whole sample revealed similar results as analyses for patients vs. controls for zygomaticus modulations during emotion processing, and for modulations of emotional reactions due to emotion regulation.
To sum up, the virtual penalty kicking paradigm proved to be successful for the induction of positive, but not negative emotions. The importance of presence in virtual reality for the intensity of induced emotions could be replicated. ADHD patients showed impaired processing of primarily positive emotions. Aberrations in negative emotional responding were less clear and need further investigation. Results point to adult ADHD in comparison to healthy controls suffering from baseline deficits in autonomic arousal and deficits in arousal modulation. Deficits of ADHD in the deliberate application of response-focused emotion regulation could not be found.
Beyond the state of the art, towards intuitive and reliable non-visual Brain-Computer-Interfacing
(2016)
For the present work three main goals were formulated:
goal 1 To design a tactile BCI used for mobility which is
intuitive (G1.1), reliable and fast while being usable
by participants aged 50 years and above.
goal 2 To design an auditory BCI used for communication
which is intuitive and reliable.
goal 3 To examine the effects of training on tactile and
auditory BCI performance.
Three studies were performed to achieve these goals.
In the first study nine participants aged above 50 years
performed a five-session training after which eight participants
were able to navigate a virtual wheelchair with
mean accuracy above 95% and an ITR above 20 bits / min.
In the second study 15 participants, four of them endusers
with motor-impairment, were able to communicate
meaningful with high accuracies using an auditory BCI.
In the third study nine healthy and nine visually impaired
participants (regarded as sensory experts for non-visual
perception) performed tactile, auditory and visual (for
healthy participants only) copy tasks. Participants with
trained perception significantly outperformed control
participants for tactile but not for auditory performance.
Tactile performance of sensory experts was on equal levels
as the visual performance of control participants.
We were able to demonstrate viability of intuitive gazeindependent
tactile and auditory BCI. Our tactile BCI performed
on levels similar to those of visual BCI, outperforming
current tactile BCI protocols. Furthermore, we were
able to demonstrate significant beneficial effect of training
on tactile BCI performance. Our results demonstrate previously
untapped potential for tactile BCI and avenues for
future research in the field of gaze-independent BCI.
Although many researchers refer to organizational culture as the key to explain employees' organizational corruption (= corruption on behalf of the organization), literature lacks systematic empirical evidence. Through a mixed-method approach this research tries to shed some first lights on this issue with the questions: what characteristics describe an organizational culture that promotes employees' corruption? Does a certain type of organizational culture shape a positive attitude towards organizational corruption? Does organizational culture differ in its impact on different types of corruption? Does organizational culture interact with employees’ sex to promote employees’ corruption? And, is there a main effect of sex on corruption?
A qualitative study investigates the characteristics of a corrupt organizational culture in both general and in particular for managers and employees (Study 1). 14 experts of different occupations were asked about underlying assumptions, values, and norms of a corrupt organizational culture coding the frequency and relationship of their answers. The results showed specific underlying assumptions, values, and norms that were shared by the interviewees and provide first insights into their interrelatedness.
In addition, the quantitative field survey (Study 2) analyzed if a corrupt organizational culture shapes a positive attitude towards organizational corruption and if both tangible rewards and lax control mechanism mediate this impact. 131 participants answered questionnaires about their perceived competition in their industry, tangible rewards, lax control mechanism, and their attitude towards both gifting and bribery. Results showed that lax control mechanism (and for gifting also tangible rewards) mediated the positive impact of a corrupt organizational culture on organizational corruption. In addition, men and women did not differ in their attitude towards organizational corruption in a corrupt organizational culture.
Finally a web-based experiment investigates if organizational culture shapes employees' corruption (Study 3). In addition this approach also covers if the impact of organizational culture on corruption depends on the type of corruption (organizational corruption vs. counterproductive), and if employees’ sex influence corruption and if there is an interaction of organizational culture and sex on employees’ corruption. 563 participants had to decide whether they engage in corruption. Although a corrupt organizational culture raises both types of corruption, there was neither a notable main effect of sex nor a high impact interaction effect of both on both types of corruption. Thus, aspects of a corrupt organizational culture seem to influence employees' corruption.