Oliver Genschow
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 1662618 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Oliver Genschow |
| PRENOMES | Oliver |
| SOBRENOME | Genschow |
| ASSINATURA | GENSCHOW O |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Cologne |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6322-4392 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 32 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 19 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 32 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2012 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Effects of Psychological Distance on Mental Abstraction
Construal-level theory (CLT) proposes that psychological distance influences the level of abstraction at which something is mentally construed: Things perceived as less probable (likelihood) or further away from the here (spatial distance), now (temporal distance), or self (social distance) are thought about more abstractly. In this international multilab study, we tested four basic hypotheses derived from core assumptions of CLT and explore pote…
The effectiveness of manipulation characteristics on modifying belief in free will and punishment
Manipulations of belief in free will and behavioral outcomes have demonstrated mixed success raising the question under which conditions free will belief manipulations effectively change beliefs with its downstream consequences. Across four experiments (N = 3182) we tested the importance of commonly used manipulation characteristics by manipulating information type (text only vs. statements only vs. text and statements combined) and participants'…
Are Free Will Believers Happier? Converging Evidence From Daily Life and Experimental Research
Does it matter whether people believe in free will? Over recent decades, this question has sparked a debate across philosophy, sociology, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. Previous research has largely overlooked how this belief relates to people’s everyday affect. To address this gap, we conducted two experience-sampling studies with participants from five European countries to examine the association between belief in free will and indivi…
A Kick to Desire
Major sporting events exert manifold influences on people’s intra- and interpersonal experiences. Preliminary findings suggest that they affect sexuality, but the evidence has been limited to population-level outcomes such as birth rates. Direct, individual-level evidence and research on underlying processes are missing. In this preregistered study, we investigated the relationship between the success of national men’s soccer teams during the UEF…
Commentary to Kaiser and Wilson (2026)
We agree with Kaiser and Wilson's (2026) assessment that the underlying mechanisms of many well-known effects are understudied.In this regard, the authors must be applauded for contributing to one of the most critical aspects of psychological research.Indeed, seemingly similar effects may have diverging causes, and the same process may be responsible for different phenomena.Thus, focusing on mechanisms increases parsimony and precision (e.g., Cru…
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Victims of Conspiracies? An Examination of the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Dispositional Individual Victimhood
Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related c…
Does reading an anti-free will text affect beliefs related to free will over time? — A registered report
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
Addressing climate change with behavioral science
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interve…
Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated
It Is Belief in Dualism, and Not Free Will, That Best Predicts Helping
Previous research found that experimentally reducing people’s belief in free will affects social behaviors. However, more recent investigations could not replicate several findings in this literature. An explanation for the mixed findings is that free will beliefs are related to social behaviors on a correlational level, but experimental manipulations are not able to detect this relation. To test this interpretation, we conceptually replicated an…
Possibilities of imitation
Humans tend to automatically imitate others. This tendency is generally explained by a common representation of observed and executed actions. However, people do not imitate each and any behavior they observe. Instead, they have different possibilities in terms of when, what, and whom they imitate. Here, we review the literature on the various factors that modulate imitative behavior to get an overview of these possibilities. While the reviewed l…
The spillover effect of mimicry
It Matters to Whom You Compare Yourself
Unrealistic Optimism (UO) appears when comparing participants’ risk estimates for themselves with an average peer, which typically results in lower risk estimates for the self. This article reports nuanced effects when comparison varies in terms of the gender of the peer. In three studies (total N = 2,468, representative sample), we assessed people’s risk estimates for COVID-19 infections for peers with the same or other gender. If a peer’s gende…
The role of free will beliefs in social behavior
Recent research has examined the consequences that holding views about free will has on social behavior. Specifically, through manipulating people's belief in free will, researchers have tested the psychological and behavioral consequences of free will belief change. However, findings of such manipulations have been shown to be relatively small and inconsistent. The purpose of this paper is to outline four key areas for researchers in this area t…
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…
Group membership does not modulate automatic imitation
Individuals have the automatic tendency to imitate each other. A key prediction of different 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 a few experiments have investigated the influence of group membership using classic automatic imitation paradigms and these experiments led to mixed results…
Imagining is Not Observing
Individuals automatically mimic a wide range of different behaviors, and such mimicking behavior has several social benefits. One of the landmark findings in the literature is that being mimicked increases liking for the mimicker. Research in cognitive neuroscience demonstrated that mentally simulating motor actions is neurophysiologically similar to engaging in these actions. Such research would predict that merely imagining being mimicked produ…
Top-down social modulation of perception-action coupling
Belief in Free Will Is Related to Internal Attribution in Self-Perception
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 in…
Automatic or controlled
Most people believe in free will. Past research has indicated that reducing this belief has numerous downstream consequences including everyday outcomes as well as neural and cognitive correlates associated with a reduction of self‐control. However, the exact mechanisms through which a reduction in free will belief affects self‐control are still a matter of investigation. In the present registered report, we used a task switching paradigm to exam…
A direct test of the similarity assumption — Focusing on differences as compared with similarities decreases automatic imitation
Imitation and interindividual differences
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 i…
Professional Judges’ Disbelief in Free Will Does Not Decrease 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 an…
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
The color red reduces snack food and soft drink intake
Automatic imitation
0.95, 95% CI [0.88, 1.02]. Moderator analyses identified automatic imitation as a flexible, largely automatic process that is driven by movement and effector compatibility, but is also influenced by spatial compatibility. Automatic imitation was found to be stronger for forced choice tasks than for simple response tasks, for human agents than for nonhuman agents, and for goalless actions than for goal-directed actions. However, it was not modulat…
Victims of Conspiracies? An Examination of the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Dispositional Individual Victimhood
Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related c…
The submissive chameleon
The color red reduces snack food and soft drink intake
Recognition and Approach Responses Toward Threatening Objects
Previous research suggests that positive stimuli are often approached as well as recognized faster than negative stimuli. We argue that this effect does not hold if negative stimuli are associated with threat. Based on fear module theory ( Öhman & Mineka, 2001 , 2003 ), we argue that individuals recognize threatening stimuli faster than positive stimuli because of a constant monitoring of the environment for threatening objects. Moreover, based o…
Automatic imitation
0.95, 95% CI [0.88, 1.02]. Moderator analyses identified automatic imitation as a flexible, largely automatic process that is driven by movement and effector compatibility, but is also influenced by spatial compatibility. Automatic imitation was found to be stronger for forced choice tasks than for simple response tasks, for human agents than for nonhuman agents, and for goalless actions than for goal-directed actions. However, it was not modulat…
The hand of God or the hand of Maradona? Believing in free will increases perceived intentionality of others’ behavior
The question of whether free will actually exists has been debated in philosophy for centuries. However, how belief in free will shapes the perception of our social environment still remains open. Here we investigate whether belief in free will affects how much intentionality we attribute to other people. Study 1a and 1b demonstrate a weak positive relation between the strength of belief in free will and the perceived intentionality of soccer pla…
The submissive chameleon
A direct test of the similarity assumption — Focusing on differences as compared with similarities decreases automatic imitation
Imitation and interindividual differences
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 i…
Professional Judges’ Disbelief in Free Will Does Not Decrease 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 an…
Does social psychology persist over half a century? A direct replication of Cialdini et al.’s (1975) classic door-in-the-face technique
Many failed replications in social psychology have cast doubt on the validity of the field. Most of these replication attempts have focused on findings published from the 1990s on, ignoring a large body of older literature. As some scholars suggest that social psychological findings and theories are limited to a particular time, place, and population, we sought to test whether a classical social psychological finding that was published nearly hal…
Free to blame? Belief in free will is related to victim blaming
Group membership does not modulate automatic imitation
Individuals have the automatic tendency to imitate each other. A key prediction of different 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 a few experiments have investigated the influence of group membership using classic automatic imitation paradigms and these experiments led to mixed results…
Imagining is Not Observing
Individuals automatically mimic a wide range of different behaviors, and such mimicking behavior has several social benefits. One of the landmark findings in the literature is that being mimicked increases liking for the mimicker. Research in cognitive neuroscience demonstrated that mentally simulating motor actions is neurophysiologically similar to engaging in these actions. Such research would predict that merely imagining being mimicked produ…
Top-down social modulation of perception-action coupling
Belief in Free Will Is Related to Internal Attribution in Self-Perception
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 in…
Automatic or controlled
Most people believe in free will. Past research has indicated that reducing this belief has numerous downstream consequences including everyday outcomes as well as neural and cognitive correlates associated with a reduction of self‐control. However, the exact mechanisms through which a reduction in free will belief affects self‐control are still a matter of investigation. In the present registered report, we used a task switching paradigm to exam…
It Matters to Whom You Compare Yourself
Unrealistic Optimism (UO) appears when comparing participants’ risk estimates for themselves with an average peer, which typically results in lower risk estimates for the self. This article reports nuanced effects when comparison varies in terms of the gender of the peer. In three studies (total N = 2,468, representative sample), we assessed people’s risk estimates for COVID-19 infections for peers with the same or other gender. If a peer’s gende…
The role of free will beliefs in social behavior
Recent research has examined the consequences that holding views about free will has on social behavior. Specifically, through manipulating people's belief in free will, researchers have tested the psychological and behavioral consequences of free will belief change. However, findings of such manipulations have been shown to be relatively small and inconsistent. The purpose of this paper is to outline four key areas for researchers in this area t…
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…
Addressing climate change with behavioral science
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interve…
Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated
It Is Belief in Dualism, and Not Free Will, That Best Predicts Helping
Previous research found that experimentally reducing people’s belief in free will affects social behaviors. However, more recent investigations could not replicate several findings in this literature. An explanation for the mixed findings is that free will beliefs are related to social behaviors on a correlational level, but experimental manipulations are not able to detect this relation. To test this interpretation, we conceptually replicated an…
Possibilities of imitation
Humans tend to automatically imitate others. This tendency is generally explained by a common representation of observed and executed actions. However, people do not imitate each and any behavior they observe. Instead, they have different possibilities in terms of when, what, and whom they imitate. Here, we review the literature on the various factors that modulate imitative behavior to get an overview of these possibilities. While the reviewed l…
The spillover effect of mimicry
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Victims of Conspiracies? An Examination of the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Dispositional Individual Victimhood
Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related c…
Psychology (25 obras) · Social Psychology (21 obras) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (15 obras) · Cognitive psychology (13 obras) · Action Observation and Synchronization (10 obras) · Free Will and Agency (10 obras) · Free will (8 obras) · Computer Science (6 obras) · Epistemology (6 obras) · Imitation (6 obras)