Emotions significantly influence our perceptions and interactions with the environment, yet the impact of our emotional states on judging and responding to others remains underexplored. In this... Show moreEmotions significantly influence our perceptions and interactions with the environment, yet the impact of our emotional states on judging and responding to others remains underexplored. In this thesis, I examined how (romantic) attraction influences our attention (Part I), how we judge others’ intentions (Part II), and whether mimicking another facilitates bond formation (Part III). In two empirical chapters, I demonstrate that people have a strong attentional bias towards visual attractiveness and a tendency to indicate interest in establishing a romantic connection to attractive others. In the subsequent empirical chapter, I show that men are more likely to judge women they find attractive as more sexually aroused. Crucially, in a real-life dating study, I show that men who are attracted to another are more likely to assume mutual interest. Further, I introduce a framework suggesting that people align their actions and emotional states with others to foster romantic relationships. The final empirical chapter suggests that mimicking the attraction cues of others enhances bond formation. Overall, this dissertation sheds light on how attractiveness and attraction affect our attention, our social cognition, and the synchronization of actions and emotions, offering insights into the mechanisms underlying romantic connections. Show less
Jong, K. de; Douglas, S.; Wolpert, M.; Delgadillo, J.; Aas, B.; Bovendeerd, B.; ... ; Barkham, M. 2024
This thesis summarizes a PhD research project, in which we successfully developed and tested a smartphone-based version of the AAT. We used the mobile AAT to show that approach-avoidance tendencies... Show moreThis thesis summarizes a PhD research project, in which we successfully developed and tested a smartphone-based version of the AAT. We used the mobile AAT to show that approach-avoidance tendencies can undergo substantial state-like changes. We further demonstrate how these changes can be systematically related to other state-variables and how important health-related outcomes such as overweight and obesity, can be explained by disruptions of these dynamics. Our findings have broad implications for approach-avoidance research and task-based research in general, as they reveal how smartphones can be used to get insights into the dynamic nature of task outcomes and how (disruptions of) these dynamics can have important real-life consequences. Show less
Self-employed workers face numerous demands, including high uncertainty, workload, and personal responsibility for business success, that have the potential to jeopardize their well-being. This... Show moreSelf-employed workers face numerous demands, including high uncertainty, workload, and personal responsibility for business success, that have the potential to jeopardize their well-being. This study integrates aspects of the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and the literature on intention–behavior gaps to offer insights into how self-employed workers can influence their well-being. We propose that their intention to adopt self-care practices acts as a motivational element that links assumptions about the well-being-protecting and -enhancing effects of self-care practices to the enactment of such practices. Moreover, we investigate the role of entrepreneurial stressors as potential hindering factors in the translation of self-care practice intentions into actual behavior. In a sample of 290 self-employed workers and employing a two-wave study design with a one-month time lag, we found that frequently practicing self-care was positively associated with workers’ vitality, negatively associated with mental health complaints, and unrelated to somatic health complaints. Among the various types of self-care, physical exercise was most consistently associated with well-being outcomes. Self-care intentions significantly predicted the engagement in self-care practices. Entrepreneurial stressors did not act as barriers to the adoption of self-care practices. By underscoring the utility of selfcare practices for self-employed workers’ well-being and the key role of self-care practice intentions, this study responds to the call for a research focus shift towards identifying practices that protect well-being among self-employed workers. Show less
Hope has intrigued and attracted humans for centuries, with views on this emotion ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. To deepen and nuance our understanding of hope – a seemingly... Show moreHope has intrigued and attracted humans for centuries, with views on this emotion ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. To deepen and nuance our understanding of hope – a seemingly positive emotion – we apply to it a valence/function framework of emotion in group-based contexts. This framework facilitates the examination and categorisation of emotions as positive or negative along two orthogonal dimensions: the pleasantness of the emotional experience and their social outcomes. According to this framework, emotions can “move” on both dimensions (i.e. be experienced as pleasant or unpleasant and lead to functional versus dysfunctional outcomes), based on various factors. Applying this framework to group-based hope may seem surprising, as the emotion is often considered universally good. Yet a more nuanced approach reveals situations in which group-based hope can be a “do bad” emotion, and, at times, can even “feel bad.” We discuss the implications of these understandings for research on hope and its applications across different group contexts. Show less
Wright, K.; Koenders, M.; Douglas, K.M.; Faurholt-Jepsen, M.; Lewandowski, K.E.; Miklowitz, D.J.; ... ; Mesman, E. 2024
The current research examines joint collective action between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, from the perspective of the latter. We hypothesize that joint action poses a dilemma which lies in... Show moreThe current research examines joint collective action between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, from the perspective of the latter. We hypothesize that joint action poses a dilemma which lies in the tension between perceived instrumentality of joint action (i.e., ability to promote the disadvantaged’s goals) and perceived normalization (i.e., its tendency to blur power relations). We test this idea across three studies in the United States and Israel/Palestine. In Study 1 (n = 361) we manipulated perceptions of joint action from the perspective of a hypothetical character, and in Study 2 (n = 378) we presented participants with an article highlighting the risk and benefit of joint activism. Results showed that perceived instrumentality increases, whereas perceived normalization decreases joint action tendencies. In Study 3 (n = 240), we described a joint action event that taps into some of the themes that induce concerns about normalization. We found that normalization perceptions feed into perceptions of instrumentality, and this occurred mainly among high identifiers, for whom the dilemma is most salient. The implications of these findings for understanding the complexity of joint collective action from the perspective of the disadvantaged are discussed. Show less
The functioning of groups and societies requires that individuals cooperate on public goods such as healthcare and state defense. More often than not, individuals face multiple public goods and... Show moreThe functioning of groups and societies requires that individuals cooperate on public goods such as healthcare and state defense. More often than not, individuals face multiple public goods and must choose on which to cooperate, if at all. Such decisions can be difficult when public goods are attractive on one dimension (e.g., being “efficient” in providing comparatively high returns) and unattractive on another (e.g., creating inequality by providing some group members greater returns than others). We examined how people manage such decision conflicts in five preregistered experiments (N = 900) that confronted participants with two public goods that varied in efficiency and (in)equality of returns. People cooperated more on the comparatively efficient public good and on the equal-return (vs. unequal-return) public good (Experiment 1), yet when the unequal-returns public good was also the most efficient, individuals cooperated comparatively more on this unequal-but-efficient public good when they themselves benefitted the most from inequality (Experiments 2–4). Low beneficiaries largely ignored public goods efficiency and preferentially cooperated on the equal- rather than unequal-returns public good. Expectations (Experiments 2–4), preferences for revising the multiple-public-goods provision problems’ choice architecture (Experiments 3–4), and descriptive norms held by uninvolved arbitrators (Experiment 5) echoed these cooperation patterns, but uninvolved arbitrators deemed it socially appropriate to cooperate more on the equal than the unequal public good regardless of beneficiary position. We discuss implications for theory and policy on cooperation Show less
This dissertation focused on the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying adolescent learning and mental health in the context of peers and friends. The neuroimaging findings revealed that... Show moreThis dissertation focused on the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying adolescent learning and mental health in the context of peers and friends. The neuroimaging findings revealed that reward processing for self and peers rely on common reward-related brain regions, whereas a social brain region (TPJ) showed social specificity to observed outcomes for unfamiliar peers compared to friends. Moreover, typically developing adolescents and adolescents with ADHD show neural sensitivity in reward and salience brain regions towards rewards for themselves, friends and peers compared to losses. There were no group differences in neural processing of (vicarious) outcomes between adolescents with and without ADHD, yet a symptom-level approach showed more neural sensitivity for own compared to friends’ losses in individuals with more inattention symptoms. The behavioral findings indicated that adolescents’ learning performance benefitted from observing the choices and outcomes of peers irrespective of the relationship with this peer. The results did not show effects of friendship (quality) and social status on observational and academic learning, but there was a protective effect of friendship quality on internalizing problems. Taken together, these findings highlight adolescence as a period of observational learning opportunities from different types of peers. Adolescence can also serve as a window of opportunity to improve mental health by fostering high-quality friendships. Show less
Schulze, A.; Hughes, N.; Lis, S.; Krause, A.D. 2024
In theory, it can be strategically advantageous for competitors to make themselves unpredictable to their opponents, for example, by variably mixing hostility and friendliness. Empirically, it... Show moreIn theory, it can be strategically advantageous for competitors to make themselves unpredictable to their opponents, for example, by variably mixing hostility and friendliness. Empirically, it remains open whether and how competitors make themselves unpredictable, why they do so, and how this conditions conflict dynamics and outcomes. We examine these questions in interactive attacker–defender contests, in which attackers invest to capture resources held and defended by their opponent. Study 1, a reanalysis of nine (un)published experiments (total N = 650), reveals significant cross-trial variability especially in proactive attacks and less in reactive defense. Study 2 (N = 200) shows that greater variability makes both attacker’s and defender’s next move more difficult to predict, especially when variability is due to occasional rather than (in)frequent extreme investments in conflict. Studies 3 (N = 27) and 4 (N = 106) show that precontest testosterone, a hormone associated with risk-taking and status competition, drives variability during attack which, in turn, increases sympathetic arousal in defenders and defender variability (Study 4). Rather than being motivated by wealth maximization, being unpredictable in conflict and competition emerges in function of the attacker’s desire to win “no matter what” and comes with significant welfare cost to both victor and victim. Show less