The dissertation explores the complex interplay between financial scarcity and its psychological effects, shedding light on its impact on decision-making, avoidance behavior, and perceived control.... Show moreThe dissertation explores the complex interplay between financial scarcity and its psychological effects, shedding light on its impact on decision-making, avoidance behavior, and perceived control. Through a series of experiments, we found that financial scarcity increases temporal discounting, indicating a tendency to prioritize immediate gains over future outcomes. A longitudinal study revealed a reciprocal relationship over time between financial scarcity and avoidance behavior, hinting at the existence of a psychological poverty trap. Furthermore, an experiment demonstrated that financial scarcity increases the tendency to delay bill payments. However, evidence regarding attentional disengagement from financial stressors, assessed with an eye-tracker, remained inconclusive. A global survey spanning 51 societies confirmed the negative link between financial scarcity and perceived control, but also uncovered significant cross-cultural variations. Surprisingly, in societies with lower welfare provisions and institutional quality, the negative relationship between financial scarcity and control was weaker. Likewise, collectivist and traditional values seemed to buffer against the negative effect of financial scarcity on control. The dissertation informs about the psychological reality of dealing with problematic household finances and its consequences on decisions. Show less
Cognitive processes play an important role in human mate choice. However, far less is known about this topic in non-human animals. In this thesis, I take a comparative approach to sexually... Show moreCognitive processes play an important role in human mate choice. However, far less is known about this topic in non-human animals. In this thesis, I take a comparative approach to sexually selective cognition by studying humans (Homo sapiens) and Bornean orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus). I start by reviewing the literature on sexually selective cognition. Hereafter, I show that visual, but not auditory or olfactory attractiveness, plays a major role in initial human mate choice. Furthermore, I show that attractiveness has a profound influence on visual attention in humans, and that attentional biases towards attractive conspecifics may be associated with mate choice. I explore the same topic in Bornean orang-utans by presenting them with stimuli of fully developed males or males experiencing arrested development. The results of these studies suggest that orang-utans preferentially attend to fully developed males, but only in the eye-tracking task and not in touchscreen tasks. The last chapter explores vocalisations, and suggests that orang-utan mate preferences might reflect in female vocal behaviour. Altogether, the results of this thesis suggest that humans and orang-utans show cognitive biases towards mate-relevant traits. However, better understanding of the link between such biases and actual mate choice remains of pivotal importance. Show less
This thesis generated insights into the neural and affective signatures of connectedness between parents and adolescents and between people in general, which is operationalized by responses to eye... Show moreThis thesis generated insights into the neural and affective signatures of connectedness between parents and adolescents and between people in general, which is operationalized by responses to eye contact and empathy. Overall, our findings show that during adolescence, parents are still highly attuned to their child at the neural and affective level. In addition, adolescents report to feel more connected with their parents than with unknown others, although this was not directly reflected in stronger neural responses. Another interesting finding is that making eye contact for a prolonged period generally enhanced the socio-emotional connection between people, both between parents and adolescents and with unknown others. For individuals with a history of CEM and depressed adolescents eye contact is less socially rewarding, however, and does not seem to foster a stronger connectedness with others. Studying the psychobiological underpinnings of affiliative bonding, including the parent-adolescent bond, brings us a step closer to unraveling how such bonds are established and maintained during adolescence. And even more important: Once we know how these bonds are established, we might be better able to modify and repair these bonds in situations in which they for some reason got disrupted. Show less
Social anxiety is anxiety about negative evaluation and rejection by others. Social anxiety has been long related to reduced eye contact, this feature is seen as a casual and a maintaining factor... Show moreSocial anxiety is anxiety about negative evaluation and rejection by others. Social anxiety has been long related to reduced eye contact, this feature is seen as a casual and a maintaining factor of social anxiety disorder. However, related empirical findings were equivocal. The dissertation sought to address three key questions: (1) Whether social anxiety is featured by gaze avoidance. (2) Under which conditions socially anxious individuals display gaze avoidance. (3) To what extent subjective experience of gaze avoidance corresponds with actual gaze behavior. Using the combination of naturalistic social settings and wearable eye-trackers, the dissertation provides evidence for the relationship between social anxiety and gaze avoidance particularly in naturalistic social situation, and further reveals that the relationship depends on severity of social anxiety symptoms, type of social situation and age group. Besides, gaze anxiety is moderately associated with actual gaze avoidance. Altogether, the dissertation sheds light on the nature of gaze behavior adopted by socially anxious individuals in naturalistic social interactions. Show less
Through a series of well-controlled experiments, this dissertation provides a comprehensive study of incomplete tonal neutralization regarding both production and perception in Dalian Mandarin.... Show moreThrough a series of well-controlled experiments, this dissertation provides a comprehensive study of incomplete tonal neutralization regarding both production and perception in Dalian Mandarin. Dalian Mandarin is used in this instance, as it is known for its interesting tonal characteristics between Tone 1 and Tone 4, the two falling tones. Its Tone 2 and Tone 3 are also comparable with Standard Chinese. Therefore, Dalian Mandarin presents us with an opportunity to gain a better understanding of incomplete tonal neutralization in both isolation and tonal contexts. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the main research questions to be discussed in this dissertation. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the production of the two falling tones (Tone 1 and Tone 4) in Dalian Mandarin, both in isolation and tonal contexts (in terms of both tone sandhi and tonal coarticulation contexts). Chapter 4 then investigates the online perception of the two falling tones in isolation and in tonal coarticulation contexts. Chapter 5 studies the production and online perception of the 3rd tone sandhi of Dalian Mandarin. Chapter 6 revisits the research questions and concludes the main findings. Show less
Spoken language is rich in its variability due to various factors. Previous studies have paid much attention to how people produce and perceive different types of segmental variation typically in... Show moreSpoken language is rich in its variability due to various factors. Previous studies have paid much attention to how people produce and perceive different types of segmental variation typically in non-tonal languages. Much less, however, has been investigated and understood on how suprasegmental features such as lexical tones vary in their acoustic realizations in different contexts in speech production and how the variabilities further affect listeners' perception of the lexical tones and the recognition of speech. This dissertation provides a comprehensive study of both local and global tonal variability in Tianjin Mandarin with a series of well-controlled experiments. The dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the main research issues to be discussed in this dissertation, followed by a description of the phonological system of Tianjin Mandarin in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 sets out to investigate the f0 variability induced by two local tonal variation processes, i.e., tone sandhi and tonal coarticulation. Chapters 4 and 5 investigate the perceptual consequences of the local tonal variability discussed in Chapter 3. Chapter 6 sets out to further understand how global factors might influence the tonal f0 realization. Chapter 7 revisits the research questions and concludes the main findings. Show less
