Iris K Schneider
Biographic Data
| ID | 650472 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Iris K Schneider |
| GIVEN NAMES | Iris K |
| FAMILY NAME | Schneider |
| SIGNATURE | SCHNEIDER I K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cologne |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0915-0809 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Just Not That Into You
Theoretical work has proposed that people can have four different patterns of interpersonal evaluations: mostly positive, mostly negative, ambivalent (both positive and negative), and indifferent (neither positive nor negative). Notably, indifference has been largely overlooked by empirical research, despite growing evidence that indifferent feelings can occur in romantic relationships. To address this gap, we examined the associations of feeling…
Assessing Validity and Bias of Within-Person Variability in Affect and Personality
Within-person variability in affect (e.g., Neuroticism) and personality have been linked to well-being. These are measured either by asking people to report how variable they are or to give multiple reports on the construct and calculating a within-person standard deviation adjusted for confounding by the person-level mean. The two measures are weakly correlated with one another and the links of variability with well-being depend on which measure…
Loves me, loves me not
Romantic relationships can be rewarding and costly at the same time, making it no surprise that partners can often feel ambivalent (simultaneously positive and negative) feelings toward one another. Although research has shown that the individual who experiences ambivalence toward their romantic partner is likely to endure aversive effects, not much is known about how this ambivalence affects their partner, who is the target of the ambivalent fee…
Too much information? A systematic investigation of the antecedents and consequences of ambivalence-induced information seeking behavior
Open for business
Leaders often find themselves in complex situations in which they must navigate competing and contradictory demands. Consequently, leaders often experience ambivalence. While followers pay close attention to leaders and use their leaders’ behaviors and emotions as cues for modeling their own behavior, there is little empirical work exploring how followers perceive leader ambivalence and how these perceptions affect followers. Therefore, in three …
A Systematic Study of Ambivalence and Well-Being in Romantic Relationships
People in close relationships can, and often do, experience ambivalence (i.e., mixed feelings) toward their romantic partner. Although ambivalence is common and consequential, research on this phenomenon is fragmented. The present work examines how four different types of ambivalence (i.e., objective, subjective, implicit-explicit, and implicit ambivalence) relate to well-being. In four intensive studies ( N = 1,134) and internal meta-analyses, a…
Is the Effect of Trust on Risk Perceptions a Matter of Knowledge, Control, and Time? An Extension and Direct-Replication Attempt of Siegrist and Cvetkovich (2000)
The complexity of societal risks such as pandemics, artificial intelligence, and climate change may lead laypeople to rely on experts and authorities when evaluating these threats. While Siegrist and Cvetkovich showed that competence-based trust in authorities correlates with perceived societal risks and benefits only when people feel unknowledgeable, recent research has yielded mixed support for this foundational work. To address this discrepanc…
The “memory-experience gap” for affect does not reflect a general memory bias to overestimate past affect
Retrospective self-reports are widely used to measure affect and well-being. But researchers have long assumed that people overestimate affective experiences in retrospect and that retrospective self-reports are thus biased. This is because of the memory-experience gap, a phenomenon in which retrospective ratings for a longer timeframe are higher than the average of repeated ratings for shorter timeframes. This discrepancy is the basis of theorie…
Mixed signals
Ambivalence (i.e., "mixed feelings") is a common and consequential experience in romantic relationships, but not much is known about which aspects of relationships are likely to elicit it. We investigated whether romantic jealousy (experienced by the individual and perceived in one's partner) is associated with stronger ambivalence toward the partner. Four studies ( N = 1,466; participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Nethe…
Close to the same
Six preregistered studies show that the degree of similarity of two objects biases people’s spatial memory of these objects. When objects are high in similarity, people remember having seen them closer together in space than when they are low in similarity. All six studies provide correlational evidence, showing that the more similar participants rated two stimuli, the smaller they remembered the distance between them. This was true for both conc…
Bias in Self-Reports
Researchers have long worried about a phenomenon where study participants give higher ratings on self-report scales the first time they take a survey compared to subsequent times, particularly for negative subjective experiences. Recent experimental evidence, using samples of U.S. college students, suggests that this initial elevation phenomenon is due to an upward bias in people’s initial responses. Such bias potentially undermines the validity …
Relativity in Social Cognition
A key challenge for social psychology is to identify unifying principles that account for the complex dynamics of social behaviour. We propose psychological relativity and its core mechanism of comparison as one such unifying principle. To support our proposal, we review recent evidence investigating basic processes underlying and novel applications of social comparisons. Specifically, we clarify determinants of assimilation and contrast, evaluat…
The effect of spatial distance between objects on categorization level
We show that spatial distance between two objects influences how people categorize these objects. We report three (two pre-registered) experiments that show that when objects are presented close together (proximal), they are more likely to be categorized in a superordinate category than when they are presented further apart (distant). In Experiments 1A and 1B, participants provided spontaneous category labels in an open response format. In Experi…
Ambivalence and Self-Reported Adherence to Recommendations to Reduce the Spread of Covid-19
Governments worldwide still, to some extent, rely on behavioral recommendations to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We examine the role of ambivalence toward both the specific recommendations (micro-ambivalence) and the pandemic as a whole (macro-ambivalence) about compliance. We predict that micro ambivalence relates negatively, whereas macro ambivalence relates positively to self-reported adherence to recommendations. We present two studies ( N =…
Mix is different from nix
Leaving with something
When allocating resources, people often have to resolve a conflict between equity and efficiency concerns. That is, sometimes for everyone to receive the same amount of resources, some resources must be used suboptimally. However, it is unclear whether and how people account for the impact their allocation decisions would have on the recipients' outcome. In three experiments, we examine how the amount of resources allocated to the recipients infl…
Mix is Different from Nix
Ambivalence, the activation of both positive and negative thoughts and feelings regarding a single attitude object, plays a role in many domains in people's lives. For instance, people can be ambivalent about societal topics, health, politics, family, and even their partners. Recently, mouse tracking has been introduced as a novel and innovative way to examine ambivalence. Although initial findings showed that mouse tracking can indeed track ambi…
Meta-analytic evidence for ambivalence resolution as a key process in effortless self-control
Too close to call
Middle ground approach to paradox
Thriving in increasingly complex and ambiguous environments requires creativity and the capability to reconcile conflicting demands. Recent evidence with Western samples has suggested that paradoxical frames, or mental templates that encourage individuals to recognize and embrace contradictions, could produce creative benefits. We extended the timely, but understudied, topic by studying the nuances of for whom and why creative advantages of parad…
Justify your alpha
Effects of Trait Self‐Control on Response Conflict About Healthy and Unhealthy Food
Self‐control leads to positive life outcomes, but it is poorly understood. While previous research has focused on self‐control failure, self‐control success remains unexplored. The current studies aim to shed more light on the mechanisms of self‐control by focusing on the resolution of response conflict as a key component in self‐control success. Trait self‐control was measured, and participants reported on the magnitude of response conflict they…
Let’s not be indifferent about neutrality
The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is a picture set used by researchers to select pictures that have been prerated on valence. Researchers rely on the ratings in the IAPS to accurately reflect the degree to which the pictures elicit affective responses. Here we show that this may not always be a safe assumption. More specifically, the scale used to measure valence in the IAPS ranges from positive to negative, implying that positive…
The ABC of Ambivalence
Weighty Matters
Previous work showed that concrete experiences of weight influence people’s judgments of how important certain issues are. In line with an embodied simulation account but contrary to a metaphor-enriched perspective, this work shows that perceived importance of an object influences perceptions of weight. Two studies manipulated information about a book’s importance, after which, participants estimated its weight. Importance information caused part…
Justify your alpha
Middle ground approach to paradox
Thriving in increasingly complex and ambiguous environments requires creativity and the capability to reconcile conflicting demands. Recent evidence with Western samples has suggested that paradoxical frames, or mental templates that encourage individuals to recognize and embrace contradictions, could produce creative benefits. We extended the timely, but understudied, topic by studying the nuances of for whom and why creative advantages of parad…
Meta-analytic evidence for ambivalence resolution as a key process in effortless self-control
Mix is different from nix
Leaving with something
When allocating resources, people often have to resolve a conflict between equity and efficiency concerns. That is, sometimes for everyone to receive the same amount of resources, some resources must be used suboptimally. However, it is unclear whether and how people account for the impact their allocation decisions would have on the recipients' outcome. In three experiments, we examine how the amount of resources allocated to the recipients infl…
The small-is-beautiful approach to resource allocation
Weighty Matters
Previous work showed that concrete experiences of weight influence people’s judgments of how important certain issues are. In line with an embodied simulation account but contrary to a metaphor-enriched perspective, this work shows that perceived importance of an object influences perceptions of weight. Two studies manipulated information about a book’s importance, after which, participants estimated its weight. Importance information caused part…
A healthy dose of trust
The positive effects of trust are manifold. Recent research has shown that trust levels may even influence physical health. The current work explores this issue and aims to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the relationship between trust and health in a 5‐wave longitudinal data set. Results showed that trust was positively related to physical health: Participants report fewer health problems when they trust their partner more, replicating e…
The ABC of Ambivalence
Effects of Trait Self‐Control on Response Conflict About Healthy and Unhealthy Food
Self‐control leads to positive life outcomes, but it is poorly understood. While previous research has focused on self‐control failure, self‐control success remains unexplored. The current studies aim to shed more light on the mechanisms of self‐control by focusing on the resolution of response conflict as a key component in self‐control success. Trait self‐control was measured, and participants reported on the magnitude of response conflict they…
Let’s not be indifferent about neutrality
The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is a picture set used by researchers to select pictures that have been prerated on valence. Researchers rely on the ratings in the IAPS to accurately reflect the degree to which the pictures elicit affective responses. Here we show that this may not always be a safe assumption. More specifically, the scale used to measure valence in the IAPS ranges from positive to negative, implying that positive…
Middle ground approach to paradox
Thriving in increasingly complex and ambiguous environments requires creativity and the capability to reconcile conflicting demands. Recent evidence with Western samples has suggested that paradoxical frames, or mental templates that encourage individuals to recognize and embrace contradictions, could produce creative benefits. We extended the timely, but understudied, topic by studying the nuances of for whom and why creative advantages of parad…
Justify your alpha
Mix is Different from Nix
Ambivalence, the activation of both positive and negative thoughts and feelings regarding a single attitude object, plays a role in many domains in people's lives. For instance, people can be ambivalent about societal topics, health, politics, family, and even their partners. Recently, mouse tracking has been introduced as a novel and innovative way to examine ambivalence. Although initial findings showed that mouse tracking can indeed track ambi…
Meta-analytic evidence for ambivalence resolution as a key process in effortless self-control
Too close to call
Leaving with something
When allocating resources, people often have to resolve a conflict between equity and efficiency concerns. That is, sometimes for everyone to receive the same amount of resources, some resources must be used suboptimally. However, it is unclear whether and how people account for the impact their allocation decisions would have on the recipients' outcome. In three experiments, we examine how the amount of resources allocated to the recipients infl…
Ambivalence and Self-Reported Adherence to Recommendations to Reduce the Spread of Covid-19
Governments worldwide still, to some extent, rely on behavioral recommendations to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We examine the role of ambivalence toward both the specific recommendations (micro-ambivalence) and the pandemic as a whole (macro-ambivalence) about compliance. We predict that micro ambivalence relates negatively, whereas macro ambivalence relates positively to self-reported adherence to recommendations. We present two studies ( N =…
Mix is different from nix
The effect of spatial distance between objects on categorization level
We show that spatial distance between two objects influences how people categorize these objects. We report three (two pre-registered) experiments that show that when objects are presented close together (proximal), they are more likely to be categorized in a superordinate category than when they are presented further apart (distant). In Experiments 1A and 1B, participants provided spontaneous category labels in an open response format. In Experi…
Close to the same
Six preregistered studies show that the degree of similarity of two objects biases people’s spatial memory of these objects. When objects are high in similarity, people remember having seen them closer together in space than when they are low in similarity. All six studies provide correlational evidence, showing that the more similar participants rated two stimuli, the smaller they remembered the distance between them. This was true for both conc…
Bias in Self-Reports
Researchers have long worried about a phenomenon where study participants give higher ratings on self-report scales the first time they take a survey compared to subsequent times, particularly for negative subjective experiences. Recent experimental evidence, using samples of U.S. college students, suggests that this initial elevation phenomenon is due to an upward bias in people’s initial responses. Such bias potentially undermines the validity …
Relativity in Social Cognition
A key challenge for social psychology is to identify unifying principles that account for the complex dynamics of social behaviour. We propose psychological relativity and its core mechanism of comparison as one such unifying principle. To support our proposal, we review recent evidence investigating basic processes underlying and novel applications of social comparisons. Specifically, we clarify determinants of assimilation and contrast, evaluat…
Open for business
Leaders often find themselves in complex situations in which they must navigate competing and contradictory demands. Consequently, leaders often experience ambivalence. While followers pay close attention to leaders and use their leaders’ behaviors and emotions as cues for modeling their own behavior, there is little empirical work exploring how followers perceive leader ambivalence and how these perceptions affect followers. Therefore, in three …
A Systematic Study of Ambivalence and Well-Being in Romantic Relationships
People in close relationships can, and often do, experience ambivalence (i.e., mixed feelings) toward their romantic partner. Although ambivalence is common and consequential, research on this phenomenon is fragmented. The present work examines how four different types of ambivalence (i.e., objective, subjective, implicit-explicit, and implicit ambivalence) relate to well-being. In four intensive studies ( N = 1,134) and internal meta-analyses, a…
Is the Effect of Trust on Risk Perceptions a Matter of Knowledge, Control, and Time? An Extension and Direct-Replication Attempt of Siegrist and Cvetkovich (2000)
The complexity of societal risks such as pandemics, artificial intelligence, and climate change may lead laypeople to rely on experts and authorities when evaluating these threats. While Siegrist and Cvetkovich showed that competence-based trust in authorities correlates with perceived societal risks and benefits only when people feel unknowledgeable, recent research has yielded mixed support for this foundational work. To address this discrepanc…
The “memory-experience gap” for affect does not reflect a general memory bias to overestimate past affect
Retrospective self-reports are widely used to measure affect and well-being. But researchers have long assumed that people overestimate affective experiences in retrospect and that retrospective self-reports are thus biased. This is because of the memory-experience gap, a phenomenon in which retrospective ratings for a longer timeframe are higher than the average of repeated ratings for shorter timeframes. This discrepancy is the basis of theorie…
Mixed signals
Ambivalence (i.e., "mixed feelings") is a common and consequential experience in romantic relationships, but not much is known about which aspects of relationships are likely to elicit it. We investigated whether romantic jealousy (experienced by the individual and perceived in one's partner) is associated with stronger ambivalence toward the partner. Four studies ( N = 1,466; participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Nethe…
Assessing Validity and Bias of Within-Person Variability in Affect and Personality
Within-person variability in affect (e.g., Neuroticism) and personality have been linked to well-being. These are measured either by asking people to report how variable they are or to give multiple reports on the construct and calculating a within-person standard deviation adjusted for confounding by the person-level mean. The two measures are weakly correlated with one another and the links of variability with well-being depend on which measure…
Loves me, loves me not
Romantic relationships can be rewarding and costly at the same time, making it no surprise that partners can often feel ambivalent (simultaneously positive and negative) feelings toward one another. Although research has shown that the individual who experiences ambivalence toward their romantic partner is likely to endure aversive effects, not much is known about how this ambivalence affects their partner, who is the target of the ambivalent fee…
Psychology (24 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Ambivalence (11 works) · Developmental psychology (10 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (7 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (6 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (6 works)