Boris Mayer

Previous research has shown that immersive virtual reality (VR) is a suitable tool for visualizing the consequences of climate change. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether visualization in VR has a stronger influence on climate change awareness and environmental attitudes compared to traditional media. Furthermore, it was examined how realistic a VR experience has to be in order to have an effect. The VR experience consisted of a model of the Aletsch glacier (Switzerland) melting over the course of 220 years. Explicit measurements (new environmental paradigm NEP, climate change scepticism, and nature relatedness) and an implicit measurement (implicit association test) were collected before and after the VR intervention and compared to three different non-VR control conditions (video, images with text, and plain text). In addition, the VR environment was varied in terms of degrees of realism and sophistication (3 conditions: abstract visualization, less sophisticat...

Dieser Beitrag vergleicht deutsche und polnische Jugendliche in Bezug auf ihre kulturellen Werthaltungen, ihre Beziehungsqualität mit den Eltern sowie in Bezug auf das Ausmaß an Unterstützung, das sie ihren Eltern und Großeltern zukommen lassen. Außerdem wird untersucht, inwieweit Kulturunterschiede in Wertorientierungen Unterschiede bezüglich Beziehungsqualität und intergenerationaler Unterstützung erklären können. Die Studie ist Teil des internationalen und interdisziplinären Projektes “Value of Children und Intergenerationenbeziehungen” (Trommsdorff & Nauck, 2001). Die Teilnehmer der Fragebogenuntersuchung waren 311 deutsche (56% weiblich) und 281 polnische (60% weiblich) Jugendliche zwischen 13 und 18 Jahren. Deutsche Jugendliche berichteten höhere individualistische Werte und geringere kollektivistische Werte als polnische Jugendliche, während polnische Jugendliche substantiell höhere traditionelle Familienwerte berichteten. Polnische Jugendliche berichteten auch eine engere Beziehung mit ihrer Großmutter als deutsche Jugendliche. Für die Beziehungsqualität mit den Eltern zeigten sich dagegen kaum Unterschiede. In Bezug auf die intergenerationale Unterstützung gaben polnische Jugendliche im Vergleich zu deutschen Jugendlichen an, ihre Eltern emotional und ihre Großmutter praktisch stärker zu unterstützen. Während zwei Drittel der polnischen Jugendlichen ihren Eltern helfen würden, wenn diese sie dazu auffordern, würden zwei Drittel der deutschen Jugendlichen den Tag lieber wie geplant mit ihren Freunden verbringen statt den Eltern zu helfen. In beiden Ländern waren kollektivistische und familienbezogene Werte signifikant positiv mit Beziehungsqualität und Unterstützung für Eltern und Großeltern verbunden. Unterschiede in Kollektivismus und Familienwerten erklärten auch teilweise die deutsch-polnischen Unterschiede in Beziehungsqualität und intergenerationaler Unterstützung. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf kulturelle Unterschiede in Bezug auf das vorherrschende Familienmodell in Deutschland und Polen hin. Polnische im Vergleich zu deutschen Jugendlichen können besser mit einem interdependenten Familienmodell im Sinne von Kagitcibasi (2007) charakterisiert werden, insbesondere in Bezug auf die Großeltern-Enkel Beziehung und die Bereitschaft, Eltern und Großeltern zu unterstützen

Accounts of empathy distinguish between cognitive (attribution of mental states to a social target) and emotional (sharing of emotions with a social target) empathy. To date, however, little is known about whether and how (interactions between) person perceptions, situational characteristics, and the observer-target relationship affect these constructs. The current study hence investigated (a) how the perceived warmth and competence of different social targets relate to both types of empathy, (b) whether there are differences in empathic responding to positive vs. negative scenarios, and (c) the impact of identification with the social targets. Eighty-nine participants rated cognitive and emotional empathy regarding four stereotypical target characters (student, elderly person, businessperson, alcoholic person) facing diverse positive and negative events. They also rated how warm and competent these characters appeared to them and how strongly they identified with the social targets...

Ausgehend von den vor 25 Jahren erstmals durchgeführten kulturvergleichenden Value-of-children (VOC-) Studien lassen sich die Motive, warum Menschen Kinder bekommen wollen, als ökonomisch, sozial und emotional verankert charakterisieren. Den damaligen Ergebnissen zufolge werden in traditionellen und wenig industrialisierten Kulturen eher ökonomische und soziale Präferenzen für den Kinderwunsch genannt, während in hoch industrialisierten Kulturen eher der emotionale Wert des Kindes im Vordergrund steht. In der neuen internationalen VOC-Studie wurde neben einem kulturvergleichenden auch ein generationenübergreifendes Design verwendet, um mögliche Auswirkungen des sozialen Wandels zu erfassen. Im Rahmen dieser Studie wurden die kindbezogenen Wertstrukturen tschechischer Mütter (n = 242) und Großmütter (n = 149) mit der Methode der Latent-Class-Analyse (LCA) untersucht. Aus dem in der VOC-Studie verwendeten Instrument zur Erfassung des positiven Wertes von Kindern wurden Items ausgewählt, die für die drei Bereiche des ökonomischen, sozialen und emotionalen Wertes von Kindern repräsentativ sind. In einem ersten Schritt wurde für jede der beiden Stichproben untersucht, wie viele latente Klassen bestehen, und welche kindbezogenen Wertstrukturen durch die latenten Klassen beschrieben werden. In einem zweiten Schritt wurde dann in einer gruppenvergleichenden Analyse überprüft, ob sich die latenten Klassen zwischen tschechischen Müttern und Großmüttern unterscheiden oder ob ähnliche kindbezogene Wertstrukturen in beiden Stichproben vorliegen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass sowohl Ähnlichkeiten als auch Unterschiede in den kindbezogenen Wertstrukturen tschechischer Mütter und Großmütter bestehen. Die Mehrheit der Mütter und Großmütter bejahte den emotionalen Wert des Kindes, lehnte aber gleichzeitig soziale und ökonomische Motive für den Kinderwunsch ab. Es zeigte sich aber ein Generationenunterschied dahingehend, dass ein Teil der Großmütter einen sozialen und ökonomischen Wert des Kindes befürwortete, und dies auch teilweise bei Verneinung eines emotionalen Wertes. Dies war bei den Müttern nicht der Fall. Diese Befunde deuten auf einen möglichen Effekt des sozialen Wandels (neben einem eventuellen Alterseffekt) hin zu mehr emotional orientierten kindbezogenen Wertstrukturen in der jüngern Generation tschechischer Mütter hin

I will start by discussing some aspects of Kagitcibasi’s Theory of Family Change: its current empirical status and, more importantly, its focus on universal human needs and the consequences of this focus. Family Change Theory’s focus on the universality of the basic human needs of autonomy and relatedness and its culture-level emphasis on cultural norms and family values as reflecting a culture’s capacity for fulfilling its members’ respective needs shows that the theory advocates balanced cultural norms of independence and interdependence. As a normative theory it therefore postulates the necessity of a synthetic family model of emotional interdependence as an alternative to extreme models of total independence and total interdependence. Generalizing from this I will sketch a theoretical model where a dynamic and dialectical process of the fit between individual and culture and between culture and universal human needs and related social practices is central. I will discuss this mo...

Ainsworth conceptualized acceptance (vs rejection) as one of four key features of parental care related with sensitivity that help organize secure base behavior of children. She also indicated that the expression of parental sensitivity varies across cultures and may be related with other parenting behaviors. Even though culture influences attachment development stronger beyond infancy, attachment studies are carried out mainly in early childhood. Parenting studies seems to provide broader perspective unfolding multidimensionality of parenting and related developmental outcomes in later development. Although, parenting research tap parental sensitivity and attachment less directly than attachment research, they seem to indicate adequately the directions for further research. Linking concepts and using instruments from both frameworks, we set out to answer the question how is adolescents’ mental representation of maternal acceptance, rejection and control related to their attachment ...

When proposing primary control (changing the world to fit self)/secondary control (changing self to fit the world) theory, Weisz et al. (1984) argued for the importance of the “serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can” (p. 967), and the wisdom to choose the right control strategy that fits the context. Although the dual processes of control theory generated hundreds of empirical studies, most of them focused on the dichotomy of PC and SC, with none of these tapped into the critical concept: individuals’ ability to know when to use what. This project addressed this issue by using scenario questions to study the impact of situationally adaptive control strategies on youth well-being. To understand the antecedents of youths’ preference for PC or SC, we also connected PCSC theory with Dweck’s implicit theory about the changeability of the world. We hypothesized that youths’ belief about the world’s changeability impacts how difficult it was f...

The aim of this study is a Russian-German cross-cultural comparison of the actual support and the readiness for support that adult daughters give to their parents as well as of the conditions for this support. Compared to Russia, Germany can be characterized by a more individualistic value system and a fully developed social-welfare system. Therefore, the extent of intergenerational support should be less in Germany than in Russia. Furthermore, the study attempts to test if the support-related differences between the two countries are mediated by differences in cultural values. The participants were German and Russian adult daughters who at the same time were mothers of adolescent children. The cross-cultural comparisons showed that compared to their German counterparts, Russian adult daughters reported more current support as well as a higher readiness for future support. These differences were mediated through a higher emotional interdependence (intimacy) of the Russian adult daug...

This study examined emotional responding (sympathy and distress) and prosocial behavior as well as their relations across four cultures in a specific context. Preschool children ( N = 212) from two Western cultures, Germany and Israel, and two South-East Asian cultures, Indonesia and Malaysia, participated in this study. Children's emotional reactions and prosocial behavior were observed when interacting with an adult in a quasi-experimental situation. Results showed that children from the two South-East Asian cultures, as compared to children from the two Western cultures, displayed more self-focused distress and less prosocial behavior. Across cultures, a positive relation between sympathy and prosocial behavior and a negative relation between self-focused distress and prosocial behavior were found. The strengths of these relations were moderated by culture. These results are discussed with regard to their cultural meaning in the specific experimental situation as well as to g...

Individuals are more optimistic about their own future than a comparable person’s future (personal optimism bias). In addition, they show overoptimism toward people or social groups they identify with compared with those they do not identify with (social optimism bias). However, commonalities and differences between personal and social forms of optimism bias remain to be addressed. Data from an experiment on anticipated performances in soccer (including 160 participants), revealed (a) comparable magnitudes of personal and social optimism biases, and (b) only partial overlap between personal and social optimism biases. We further found the magnitude of the biases to depend on (c) prior experience in the investigated area. Social optimism bias, however, did not correlate with (d) the extent to which the participants identified with a social in-group. In addition, we demonstrate that (e) despite the availability of objective feedback, both personal and social optimism biases are hard t...

The talk focuses on statistical aspects of the so-called 'replication crisis' that has concerned psychology in recent years. Specifically, the role of questionable research practices like p-hacking, cherry picking, and HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results are Known) is illustrated. Furthermore, I demonstrate that underpowered studies not only have a low likelihood of finding an existing effect, but also contribute to a higher rate of false positives across a large number of studies. Recently, Nelson, Simmons, and Simonsohn (2018) argued that rather than focusing on the problems uncovered by the systematic (and often unsuccessful) replications of psychological experiments in recent years, the emphasis should now be on the methodological improvements that emerged as a response to this crisis, including the preregistration of studies, the sharing of data and materials as well as full disclosure with respect to statistical analyses and variables.

This article compares family values and family future orientation between German and Russian adolescents. Based on different cultural values in Germany and Russia a higher family orientation of Russian as compared to German adolescents was assumed. Adolescents from both countries responded to a questionnaire of general and family-related values and family-related future orientation in the framework of the VOC-study. Results showed that for both German and Russian adolescents a future family of one's own is of high importance. The majority of adolescents from both countries (and both genders) reported wanting to get married in the future and to have (preferably two) children. Russian as compared to German adolescents reported a higher importance of traditional family values and child-related values (value of children), as well as a stronger desire to have children. Russian girls were most likely to abandon own career plans for the benefit of a future family. The results are discu...

This study explores and compares the family models of adolescents across ten cultures using a typological and multilevel approach. Thereby, it aims to empirically contribute to Kagitcibasi’s (2007) theory of family change. This theory postulates the existence of three ideal-typical family models across cultures: a family model of independence prevailing in Western societies, a family model of (total) interdependence prevailing in non-industrialized agrarian cultures, and as a synthesis of the latter two a family model of emotional interdependence. This family model should develop when collectivistic cultures are modernizing/industrializing. Thus, traditional cultures characterized by a family model of (total) interdependence should not go all the way to the family model of independence when undergoing modernization processes but instead develop an emotionally interdependent model that allows combining autonomy and close interpersonal relatedness. This assumption contradicts classica...