Cross-Cultural Volunteerism: Examining the Effects of Intercultural (Dis)Similarities on Volunteers’ Motivations to Support International Students

Building on a group-level perspective on helping, we investigated the processes that lead domestic students to support international students in the context of voluntary peer-pairing programs. Results from a laboratory and a field study (total N = 198) confirmed that when international students came from culturally similar countries, empathy was a motivator of domestic students' helping intentions and behavior. Among culturally dissimilar dyads, however, helping was more contingent on the evaluation of international students' individual attributes. As moderated mediation analyses suggest, this effect was due to an increase in perceived relationship satisfaction, but, as expected, only among culturally dissimilar dyads.     

When status differences are illegitimate,groups' needs diverge: Testing the needs‐based model of reconciliation in contexts of status inequality

The present paper extends the needs‐based model of reconciliation to contexts marked by status inequalities rather than by overt intergroup aggression. Specifically, we investigated whether and when members of high‐status versus low‐status groups experience divergent socio‐emotional needs vis‐à‐vis members of the respective other status group. Building on research informed by social identity theory, we hypothesized that the groups' different positions in the social hierarchy only translate into divergent needs when the status differences are perceived as illegitimate. In Study 1 (N = 130), we tested this prediction by manipulating status and perceived legitimacy of status differences in a setting with artificially created groups. Results confirmed that the need to be socially accepted by members of the other status group was stronger in high‐status compared with low‐status group members but, as expected, only when the status differences were perceived to be illegitimate. Also as predicted, the need to be empowered by the other status group was stronger in low‐status compared with high‐status group members, again only under conditions of illegitimate status differences. Study 2 (N = 169) further corroborated our perspective by replicating these findings in a naturalistic intergroup context. Implications for the role of legitimacy perceptions in determining differential socio‐emotional needs and for the promotion of sustainable social change are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subliminal anchoring: Judgmental consequences and underlying mechanisms

Judgmental anchoring—the assimilation of a numeric estimate towards a previously considered standard—is an exceptionally ubiquitous effect that influences human judgment in a variety of domains and paradigms. Three studies examined whether anchoring effects even occur, if anchor values are presented subliminally, outside of judges’ awareness. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate such subliminal anchoring effects: judges assimilated target estimates towards the subliminally presented anchor values. Study 3 further demonstrates that subliminal anchors produced a selective increase in the accessibility of anchor-consistent target knowledge. The implications of these findings for the ubiquity of judgmental anchoring, its different underlying mechanisms, and comparative information processing are discussed.     

Antecedents and consequences of autonomy- and dependency-oriented help toward refugees

We tested antecedents (paternalistic beliefs; Study 1) and consequences (social change potential; Study 2) of autonomy- and dependency-oriented help and developed scales assessing paternalistic beliefs and both forms of help. In Study 1 (N = 143 Germans), we focused on paternalistic beliefs as an antagonist to social change and a key distinguishing variable between engagement in both forms of help. As expected, paternalistic beliefs were positively related to dependency-oriented help, mediated by concern for a positive national moral image, but negatively related to autonomy-oriented help, mediated by perceived competence of refugees. In Study 2, both refugees (N = 80) and Germans (N = 94) perceived autonomy-oriented help to have more potential for social change than dependency-oriented help.     

What a car does to your perception: Distance evaluations differ from within and outside of a car

Almost a century ago it was first suggested that cars can be interpreted as tools, but consequences of this assumption were never tested. Research on hand-held tools that are used to manipulate objects in the environment suggests that perception of near space is extended by using tools. Literature on environment perception finds perception of far space to be modulated by the observer’s potential to act in the environment. Here we argue that a car increases the action potential and modulates perception of far space in a way similar to how hand-held tools modulate perception of near space. Five distances (4 to 20 meters) were estimated by pedestrians and drivers before and after driving/walking. Drivers underestimated all distances to a larger percentage than did pedestrians. Underestimation was even stronger after driving. We conclude that cars modulate the perception of far distances because they modulate the driver’s perception, like a tool typically does, and change the perceived action potential.     

Distractor-response bindings in dual task scenarios

If a response is executed in reaction to a target stimulus, accompanying distractor stimuli can be integrated with and later on retrieve this response, an effect called distractor-response binding. There has been some debate as to whether S-R binding is generally influenced by attentional processes and in particular the role of attentional processes for the binding of irrelevant stimuli and responses is unclear. We therefore analyze the impact of spatial input attention while engaging central attention in an additional task. In particular, participants worked in dual task situations that induced load on central attention while the distribution of spatial attention was manipulated by varying the location of the different tasks. Distractor-response binding occurred only if both tasks were presented in the same spatial location. In contrast, binding effects within one task were prevented if spatial attention was withdrawn from the task by presenting a second task in a separate area. It is concluded that input but no central attention is required for the integration of distractor stimuli and responses. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The speed and accuracy of perceptual decisions in a random-tone pitch task

Research in perceptual decision making is dominated by paradigms that tap the visual system, such as the random-dot motion (RDM) paradigm. In this study, we investigated whether the behavioral signature of perceptual decisions in the auditory domain is similar to those observed in the visual domain. We developed an auditory version of the RDM task, in which tones correspond to dots and pitch corresponds to motion (the random-tone pitch task, RTP). In this task, participants have to decide quickly whether the pitch of a “sound cloud” of tones is moving up or down. Stimulus strength and speed–accuracy trade-off were manipulated. To describe the relationship between stimulus strength and performance, we fitted the proportional-rate diffusion model to the data. The results showed a close coupling between stimulus strength and the speed and accuracy of perceptual decisions in both tasks. Additionally, we fitted the full drift diffusion model (DDM) to the data and showed that three of the four participants had similar speed–accuracy trade-offs in both tasks. However, for the RTP task, drift rates were larger and nondecision times slower, suggesting that some DDM parameters might be dependent on stimulus modality (drift rate and nondecision time), whereas others might not be (decision bound). The results illustrate that the RTP task is suitable for investigating the dynamics of auditory perceptual choices. Future studies using the task might help to investigate modality-specific effects on decision making at both the behavioral and neuronal levels.