scholarly journals Imitation and interindividual differences: Belief in free will is not related to automatic imitation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mareike Westfal ◽  
Jan Crusius ◽  
Oliver Genschow
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Imitative Behavior ◽  
Automatic Imitation ◽  
Total N ◽  
Interindividual Differences ◽  
Imitation Inhibition ◽  
Interpersonal Factor

It is well known that individuals have the tendency to automatically imitate each other and that such imitative behavior is fostered by perceiving intentions in others’ actions. That is, past research has shown that perceiving an action as internally driven enhances the shared representation of observed and executed actions increasing automatic imitation. An interpersonal factor that increases the perception that a behavior is internally driven is belief in free will. Consequently, we hypothesized that the more individuals believe in free will, the more they automatically imitate others. To test this prediction, we conducted two high-powered (total N = 642) and preregistered studies in which we assessed automatic imitation with the imitation-inhibition task. Contrary to our predictions, belief in free will did not correlate with automatic imitation. This finding contributes to current findings challenging the assumption that automatic imitation is modulated by interindividual differences. Further theoretical implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Automatic imitation of in- and out-group members

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Genschow ◽  
Mareike Westfal ◽  
Emiel Cracco ◽  
Jan Crusius
Keyword(s):  
Group Membership ◽  
Critical Test ◽  
Automatic Imitation ◽  
Total N ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
Imitation Inhibition ◽  
Group Members

Individuals have the automatic tendency to imitate each other. A key prediction of motivational theories explaining automatic imitation is that individuals imitate in-group members more strongly than out-group members. However, the empirical basis for this prediction is rather inconclusive. Only few experiments have investigated the influence of group membership using classic automatic imitation paradigms and these experiments led to mixed results. To put the group membership prediction to a critical test, we carried out six high-powered experiments (total N = 1,538) in which we assessed imitation with the imitation-inhibition task and manipulated group membership in different ways. Evidence across all experiments indicates that group- membership does not modulate automatic imitation. These results have important implications for motivational theories explaining automatic imitation and contribute to the current discussion of whether automatic imitation can be socially modulated.

scholarly journals Belief in free will & self-serving bias

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Genschow ◽  
Jens Lange
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Total N ◽  
Internal Forces ◽  
Resource Hypothesis ◽  
External Forces ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Personal Success

Past research indicates that individuals’ belief in free will is related to attributing others’ behavior to internal causes. An open question is whether belief in free will is related to the attribution of one’s own action. To answer this question, we tested two opposing predictions against each other by assessing the relation of belief in free will with the self-serving bias—individuals’ tendency to attribute personal success more strongly to internal forces and failure to external forces. The resource hypothesis predicts that a higher endorsement in free will belief relates to a lower self-serving bias. The intention attribution hypothesis predicts that belief in free will relates to higher internal attributions, as compared to external attributions, irrespective of success and failure. Meta-analytic evidence across five high-powered studies (total N = 1,137) supports the intention attribution hypothesis, but not the resource hypothesis.

scholarly journals Money priming and self-other focus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Genschow ◽  
Johannes Schuler ◽  
Emiel Cracco ◽  
Marcel Brass ◽  
Michaela Wänke
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Automatic Imitation ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Imitation Inhibition ◽  
Trial Basis ◽  
Cautious Interpretation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Explicit Measures

The self-sufficiency hypothesis suggests that priming individuals with money makes them focus more strongly on themselves than on others. However, recently, research supporting this claim has been heavily criticized and some attempts to replicate have failed. A reason for the inconsistent findings in the field may lay in the common use of explicit measures, because they tend to rely on one or just a few items and are thus prone to demand effects and low reliability. In the present research, we administered, in two experiments, the imitation-inhibition task—a robust, unobtrusive and reliable paradigm that is sensitive to self-other focus on a trial-by-trial basis. A pilot study found an increased focus on the self as compared to others when primed with money. Building on this finding, a preregistered high-powered experiment replicated this effect, suggesting that money primes may indeed increase a focus on the self. An additionally carried out meta-analysis indicates that automatic imitation is modulated by self-other focus and that money primes lead to a smaller focus on the self than conventional methods. Overall the found effects are rather small and several limitations, such as order effects, call for a cautious interpretation of the findings.

scholarly journals Professional Judges’ Disbelief in Free Will Does Not Decrease Punishment

2020 ◽  
pp. 194855062091505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Genschow ◽  
Heinz Hawickhorst ◽  
Davide Rigoni ◽  
Ellen Aschermann ◽  
Marcel Brass
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Retributive Punishment

There is a debate in psychology and philosophy on the societal consequences of casting doubts about individuals’ belief in free will. Research suggests that experimentally reducing free will beliefs might affect how individuals evaluate others’ behavior. Past research has demonstrated that reduced free will beliefs decrease laypersons’ tendency toward retributive punishment. This finding has been used as an argument for the idea that promoting anti-free will viewpoints in the public media might have severe consequences for the legal system because it may move judges toward softer retributive punishments. However, actual implications for the legal system can only be drawn by investigating professional judges. In the present research, we investigated whether judges ( N = 87) are affected by reading anti-free will messages. The results demonstrate that although reading anti-free will texts reduces judges’ belief in free will, their recommended sentences are not influenced by their (manipulated) belief in free will.

“Let Me Show You How Nice I Am”: Impression Management as Bias in Empathic Responses

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 752-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Sassenrath
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Response Bias ◽  
Social Desirability ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Reactivity Index ◽  
Additional Experiment ◽  
Interindividual Differences ◽  
Desirable Response ◽  
Response Biases

Past research showed that empathic responses are confounded with social desirability. The present research aims at illuminating this confound. In a first step, it is examined how a measure typically implemented to screen, for response, biases based on social desirability (i.e., the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding) relate to classical measures of interindividual differences in empathic responses (i.e., the Interpersonal Reactivity Index). Moreover, it is investigated what happens to empathic responses under conditions of reduced opportunity to behave socially desirable. Results of two correlational studies indicate that impression management (IM) as well as self-deceptive enhancement as facets of a socially desirable response bias is related to self-reported empathic responses. Results of an additional experiment show that introducing conditions reducing opportunity for IM lowers empathic responses toward a person in need. Implications for research on self-reported empathy and empathy-induced prosocial behavior are discussed.

scholarly journals Childhood Abuse and Adult Sociocognitive Skills: Distinguishing Between Self and Other Following Early Trauma

2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052090619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna R. Hudson ◽  
Lize De Coster ◽  
Hanne Spoormans ◽  
Sylvia Verbeke ◽  
Kaat Van der Jeught ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Abuse ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Adult Survivors ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Imitative Behavior ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Therapeutic Practice ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Imitation Inhibition ◽  
Early Trauma

Experience of childhood abuse (CA) impairs complex social functioning in children; however, much less is known about its effects on basic sociocognitive processes and even fewer studies have investigated these in adult survivors. Using two behavioral tasks, this study investigated spontaneous theory of mind (ToM) and imitative behavior in 41 women with CA and 26 unaffected comparison (UC) women. In the spontaneous ToM task, UCs showed a larger ToM index than CAs, indicating more facilitation by knowledge of another’s false belief. In the imitation–inhibition task, CAs experienced less interference than UCs when observing another’s incongruent movements. After controlling for depression, differences in ToM became marginally significant, yet remained highly significant for inhibiting imitative behavior. The findings suggest CA survivors have altered perspective-taking and are less influenced by others’ perspectives, potentially due to changes in self-other distinction. Clinical implications regarding therapeutic practice with survivors of CA are discussed.

scholarly journals Cultural pressure and biased responding in free will attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 191824
Author(s):  
Emiel Cracco ◽  
Carlos González-García ◽  
Ian Hussey ◽  
Senne Braem ◽  
David Wisniewski
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
General Public ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Explicit Attitudes ◽  
Simple Motor ◽  
Biased Responding ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Implicit And Explicit Attitudes ◽  
Different Levels

Whether you believe free will exists has profound effects on your behaviour, across different levels of processing, from simple motor action to social cognition. It is therefore important to understand which specific lay theories are held in the general public and why. Past research largely focused on investigating free will beliefs (FWB, ‘Do you think free will exists?’), but largely ignored a second key aspect: free will attitudes (FWA, ‘Do you like/value will?’). Attitudes are often independently predictive of behaviour, relative to beliefs, yet we currently know very little about FWAs in the general public. One key issue is whether such attitudes are subject to biased, socially desirable responding. The vast majority of the general public strongly believes in the existence of free will, which might create cultural pressure to value free will positively as well. In this registered report, we used a very large ( N = 1100), open available dataset measuring implicit and explicit attitudes towards free will and determinism to address this issue. Our results indicate that both explicit and implicit attitudes towards free will are more positive than attitudes towards determinism. We also show that people experience cultural pressure to value free will, and to devalue determinism. Yet, we found no strong evidence that this cultural pressure affected either implicit or explicit attitudes in this dataset.

The Beautiful Complexity of Human Prosociality: On the Interplay of Honesty-Humility, Intuition, and a Reward System

2020 ◽  
pp. 194855062096126
Author(s):  
Laila Nockur ◽  
Stefan Pfattheicher
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Personality Trait ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Reward System ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Total N ◽  
Intuitive Decision Making ◽  
The Impact

Human prosociality is a fascinating and complex phenomenon. The present research takes this complexity into account by examining the interplay of three prominent factors that past research has shown to promote prosocial behavior. In two studies (total N = 1,799), we tested the impact of (a) a basic prosocial personality trait (the Honesty-Humility dimension from the HEXACO personality model), (b) intuitive decision making, and (c) the possibility of being rewarded (i.e., a reward system) in the emergence of prosocial behavior (i.e., dictator game giving). Replicating previous research, we found that (1) a reward system increased prosocial behavior and (2) Honesty-Humility was positively related to prosocial behavior. In addition, given that there was no reward system, we show that intuition (vs. a control condition) reduced prosocial behavior in individuals low in Honesty-Humility, whereas no effect was found for individuals high in Honesty-Humility. Implications for the understanding of prosocial behavior are discussed.

scholarly journals Using bio-manipulation to optimise soil nitrogen and phosphorus availability within intensive farm systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vito Abbruzzese
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Soils ◽  
Sandy Loam ◽  
Organic Matter Content ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Matter Content ◽  
Soil Parameters ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Mineral N ◽  
Total N ◽  
Farm Systems

In many farm systems, both inorganic and organic fertilisers, including manure and slurry, are applied to soil to replenish nutrient offtake in agricultural products and additional nutrient losses to surface water and groundwater. The use of manure/slurry as a nutrient resource offers important advantages over a sole reliance on inorganic fertilisers, including the reuse and recycling of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) within farming systems and a reduction in the reliance of agricultural production on finite inorganic fertiliser reserves. There is increasing interest in the extent to which additives are able to enhance the nutrient value of slurry/manure. However, little is known about the effects of these modified slurries/manures on the quantity and composition of N and P within agricultural soils. We report data from batch soil experiments in which soils received a range of treatments, including the application of livestock slurry that had received a combined SlurryBugs™ and SlurryBooster™ additive. Past research has shown that SlurryBugs™ and SlurryBooster™ additives have a range of potentially beneficial effects on livestock slurry, including increased total N content of the slurry. Our experiments were designed to understand how slurry that has received additives ultimately affects nutrient availability in organic, clay-loam and sandy-loam grassland soils. We consider the effects of our treatments on a range of agronomically-important soil parameters, including Olsen-P, mineral-N, available-K, pH and organic matter content. Through our experiments, we aim to understand the extent to which soil fertility can be enhanced through the application of slurries/manures that have received additives.

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