Ad van Knippenberg

Radboud University | RU · Behavioural Science Institute

People are generally too trusting, which decreases their ability to detect deceit. This suggests that distrust could enhance our deception detection abilities. Yet, a state of distrust may induce deliberative conscious thought. This mode of thinking has been related to worse complex decision making. Hence, we investigate whether contextual distrust...

The olfactory system provides us with rich information about the world, but the odours around us are not always detectable. Previous research has shown that disgust enhances olfactory sensitivity to n-butanol. Because n-butanol incidentally is mildly negative, it is unclear whether disgust, being a negative, avoidant emotion, enhances sensitivity t...

Odors provide information regarding the chemical properties of potential environment hazards. Some of this information may be disgust-related (e.g., organic decay), whereas other information may be fear-related (e.g., smoke). Many studies have focused on how disgust and fear, as prototypical avoidant emotions, facilitate the detection of possible t...

The present study investigated resource allocation, as measured by pupil dilation, in tasks measuring updating (2-Back task), inhibition (Stroop task) and switching (Number Switch task). Because each cognitive control component has unique characteristics, differences in patterns of resource allocation were expected. Pupil and behavioral data from 3...

Background and Objectives Social anxiety is associated with biased processing of threatening faces. Earlier research indicated that socially anxious individuals are biased towards processing low spatial frequency (LSF) information when judging facial expressions. However, it remains unclear whether this bias reflects better performance for LSF-info...

More than 40 years of research have shown that people favor members of their ingroup in their impressions, attitudes, and behaviors. Here, we propose that people also form different mental images of minimal ingroup and outgroup members, and we test the hypothesis that differences in these mental images contribute to the well-established biases that...

We discuss three observations about the state of the field of behavior priming. The first is that there are many more empirical demonstrations of behavior priming than may be apparant at first sight. The second is that some people doubt the validity of behavior priming effects because they are "counterintuitive," and we argue that this reasoning is...

To deal effectively with a continuously changing environment, our cognitive system adaptively regulates resource allocation. Earlier findings showed that an avoidance orientation (induced by arm extension), relative to an approach orientation (induced by arm flexion), enhanced sustained cognitive control. In avoidance conditions, performance on a c...

Newell & Shanks (N&S) criticize theories on decision making that include unconscious processes. To the extent that their own perspective becomes apparent, however, it is dated, implausible, and at odds with the major developments of the past decades. Their conclusions are, at least for research areas we feel entitled to evaluate, based on a biased...

This chapter reviews a research programme on the effects of humour in advertising on positive and negative brand associations and brand choice, and integrates the findings into a single overarching model. Based on the Associative and Propositional Processes Model of Evaluation (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006, 2007, 2011), we propose that repeated pa...

The present study tests the hypothesis that behavioral information diagnostic of an out-group's traits biases the expected facial appearance of out-group members toward having facial features corresponding with the inferred traits. Participants formed a stereotype about a novel group based on random exemplar faces, presented alongside descriptions...

Head nodding and shaking are bodily signals of approval and disapproval, respectively. Previous research has shown that these movements can be used to shape attitudes by means of evaluative conditioning. In the present experiment, the authors studied the conditions under which evaluative conditioning with head movements can alter social attitudes....

Three experiments illustrate that humor in advertisements prevents the development of negative brand associations due to resistance. Previous research on humor in advertising suggested that humor can counter negative responses during ad processing, but less is known about the effect of humor on the development of negative brand associations in memo...

Attitude–behavior relations can be based on belief-based or associative processes. Understanding the basic regulatory mechanisms that determine which type of process guides behavior in a specific situation is of crucial importance for predicting behavior. In this article, the authors tested mood states as a moderator. In two studies, associative an...

Decisions about whether or not to donate blood can be based on explicit beliefs (“blood donation is good because it saves lives”), but also on automatic associations (“unpleasant”). When do people behave based on their explicit beliefs and when do they behave based on their automatic associations? Purpose: To determine if positive versus negative...

Humor in advertising is known to enhance product liking, but this attitude change is often considered nonpredictive of product choice. Previous research relied exclusively on explicit self-report measures to assess attitudes and purchase intentions. The present research shows that unobtrusive association of a product with humor can affect persuasio...

Social categorization and stereotyping are discussed as normal perceptual processes upon which perceivers rely for an adequate understanding of everyday social events. Social categorization and stereotyping are treated as strongly linked. It will be argued that in many situations social categorizations are used because perceivers expect the categor...

Third parties are inuential sources of information about other people, but their impact on audiences' impressions may depend on perceptions of their motives to provide the information. In two experiments we showed that when sources had a motive congruent with the target information they provided (i.e., negative information while having an obstructi...

Three studies show that social categorization is biased at the level of category allocation. In all studies, participants categorized faces. In Studies 1 and 2, participants overallocated faces with criminal features--a stereotypical negative trait--to the stigmatized Moroccan category, especially if they were prejudiced. On the contrary, the stere...

Many research fields concerned with the processing of information contained in human faces would benefit from face stimulus sets in which specific facial characteristics are systematically varied while other important picture characteristics are kept constant. Specifically, a face database in which displayed expressions, gaze direction, and head or...

As inherently social animals, humans are very sensitive to behavioral signals from other members of their group. Nonconscious imitation of conspecifics' behavior (also called social mirroring) is a common manner in which people express their sense of similarity and affiliation with others. This evolutionary important behavioral repertoire has been...

Lack of mimicry in interpersonal interactions may thwart an individual’s sense of belonging. Nonmimicked individuals are hypothesized to compensate for this by upgrading their personal relationships. In line with this hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that nonmimicked participants enhanced their evaluation of their current romantic relationship, comp...

The humor effect refers to a robust finding in memory research that humorous information is easily recalled, at the expense of recall of nonhumorous information that was encoded in close temporal proximity. Previous research suggests that memory retrieval processes underlie this effect. That is, free recall is biased toward humorous information, wh...

Studies in cognitive psychology, marketing, and education indicate that humor distracts attention from non-humorous information presented at the same time. Two experiments investigated why humor distracts attention. The two basic components of humor comprise (1) incongruency resolution, which poses cognitive demands and (2) positive affect. We dise...

In the current study, we hypothesize that post-error performance is influenced by individual differences in action orientation and situationally induced regulatory focus. Two experiments employing a time-pressured flanker-like task, measured participants’ dispositional action orientation and manipulated regulatory focus. As expected, accuracy of th...

The present research explored the nonconscious motivational influence of self-symbols. In line with recent findings on the motivational influence of positive affect, we hypothesized that positive affect associated with self-symbols may boost motivation. In Study I people drank more of a beverage when the brand name contained name letters. Study 2 e...

This study aimed to demonstrate that the cognitive demands involved in humor processing can attenuate negative emotions. A primary aspect of humor is that it poses cognitive demands needed for incongruency resolution. On the basis of findings that cognitive distraction prevents mood-congruent processing, the authors hypothesized that humorous stimu...

Self-presentation via favorable self-descriptions may not lead to the desired impression, whereas positive descriptions by others may be more effective because they seem less susceptible to motivated bias. In four experiments, we investigated whether person descriptions have more impact on impressions when provided by third parties than by targets...

The available evidence regarding the lateralisation of affect is rather divergent. Interestingly, the common procedure in previous research on affective lateralisation has been to measure hemispheric dominance following exposure to concrete affective stimuli. Therefore, prior research seems to tap primarily into the lateralisation of specific appro...

Two studies focused on impulsive purchase experiences. Feelings, considerations and ratings of purchase impulsiveness were measured with respect to a recent purchase by means of interviews immediately after the purchase in the shopping environment (Study 1) and through shopping diaries (Study 2). Feelings and considerations were measured by open-en...

Humor in advertising is known to enhance product liking, but this attitude change is often considered nonpredictive of product choice. Previous research relied exclusively on explicit self-report measures to assess attitudes and purchase intentions. The present research shows that unobtrusive association of a product with humor can affect persuasio...

Two studies focused on impulsive purchase experiences. Feelings, considerations and ratings of purchase impulsiveness were measured with respect to a recent purchase by means of interviews immediately after the purchase in the shopping environment (Study 1) and through shopping diaries (Study 2). Feelings and considerations were measured by open-en...

In two studies, the regulatory function of approach-avoidance cues in activating cognitive control processes was investigated. It was hypothesized that avoidance motor actions, relative to approach motor actions, increase the recruitment of cognitive resources, resulting in better performance on tasks that draw on these capacities. In Study 1, erro...

Prejudice biases cognition, affect, and behavior toward ethnic out-groups (Fiske, 1998). We propose that prejudice also biases the way people conceptualize the facial appearance of out-group members. Popular belief holds that people's personality traits are reflected in their facial features. Hence, people's beliefs about the traits of out-groups m...

How do you decide whether the emotion expressed on another person’s face is positive or negative? Emotions may be perceived via two routes. The longer (slower) route involves matching visual input with stored knowledge about emotions. The shorter (faster) route involves empathic emotions that serve as proprioceptive cues in emotion recognition. In...

In the present article a theory is outlined that explains why and when behavioral inhibition alters stimulus evaluations. In addition, some initial evidence is presented that supports the theory. Specifically, results of three experiments show that refraining from responding to stimuli results in devaluation of these stimuli, but only when these st...

In two experiments we show that (a) distracting stimuli are inhibited after intention formation, (b) this inhibition is episodic rather than semantic in nature, and (c) inhibition of distracting stimuli is terminated once intentions are completed. In both experiments participants were asked to form an intention to press the space bar in response to...

Recent research in neuroscience shows that observing attractive faces with direct gaze is more rewarding than observing attractive faces with averted gaze. On the basis of this research, it was hypothesized that object evaluations can be enhanced by associating them with attractive faces displaying direct gaze. In a conditioning paradigm, novel obj...

The study investigated some of the origins and consequences of psychosocial problems of haemophiliacs. Multiple regression analyses on questionnaire data from 43 patients yielded a pattern of results in which two distinct clusters of variables could be distinguished. First, it appeared that physical problems, which were more often reported by sever...

Thought suppression can ironically lead to a rebound of unwanted thoughts [Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101, 34–52.]. The present research explored whether self-affirmation may eliminate rebound effects after thought suppression. Participants either suppressed or used stereotypes in an impression f...

Previous research has shown that distracting stimuli are evaluated more negatively than new stimuli in a dual task paradigm (Raymond, Fenske, & Tavassoli, 2003). The present research aimed to extend this research by showing that repeatedly selecting targets in a perceptual identification task leads to lower evaluations of distracting stimuli embedd...

In this study it is argued that a perceiver's regulatory focus (promotion or prevention) influences the amount of attention allocated to processing stimuli from the environment. Results of two experiments, employing an interference task and using different manipulations of regulatory focus, supported this idea. More attention was allocated to stimu...

The present study investigated whether a differential number of perceived subgroups for men and women mediated the previous finding that men and women with more traditional attitudes concerning women's roles individuate men more than women, whereas individuals with less traditional attitudes better individuate women (Stewart, Vassar, Sanchez, & Dav...

Previous research has shown that focal goals are shielded through inhibition of alternative goals. The present research aims to extend these findings and show that execution of experimentally induced intentions is also shielded from distraction. In two experiments participants were instructed to form an intention to react to specific stimuli (inten...

Whereas previous findings suggest that mood alters information processing style judgment and strategic behavior, in the present article, the hypothesis is tested that moods influence our non–conscious behavior. In the first study, we observed a correlation between participants’ mood and their non–conscious mimicry of a person on television. In the...

Two studies compared Dutch college students' individuation of women and men. Participants read trait descriptions and formed impressions of male and female targets. They then attempted to recall which traits had described each target. Consistent with the status hypothesis, participants viewed men as higher status and made fewer recall errors overal...

People tend to make spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) when confronted with the behavior of others. Recent research has demonstrated that these STIs may be moderated by contextual cues such as Stereotypic category labels. The central aim of the current research was to investigate the role of cognitive resources in this process. Two experiments wer...

Previous experiments have mostly relied on recall as a dependent measure to assess whether retrieval of information from memory causes inhibition of related information. This study aimed to measure this inhibition in a more direct way. In Experiment 1, it was shown that repeated retrieval of exemplars from a category resulted in longer recognition...

The present research studied the effects of suppression of stereotypes on subsequent stereotyping. Moreover, the moderating influence of motivation to suppress stereotypes was examined. The first three experiments showed that suppression of stereotypes leads to the experience of engaging in self-control (Study 1), to depleted regulatory resources a...

Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in order to learn more about the adaptive function it serves. In three studies, we consistently found that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. Participants who had been mimic...

The present experiment investigated the influence of attitude accessibility on several meta-attitudinal strength measures. It was predicted that certainty and perceived likelihood of change, i.e., commitment-related attributes of attitude strength, are influenced by changes in attitude accessibility, while no effects were expected for importance an...

Two experiments investigated the idea that mimicry leads to pro-social behavior. It was hypothesized that mimicking the verbal behavior of customers would increase the size of tips. In Experiment 1, a waitress either mimicked half her customers by literally repeating their order or did not mimic her customers. It was found that she received signifi...

The present studies demonstrated the moderation of self-construal orientation on mimicry. Recent research has indicated that an interdependent self-construal is associated with assimilation of the other to the self whereas an independent self-construal is associated with minimizing the influence of others on the self (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 19...

Three studies investigated the effect of encouraging participants to believe in an afterlife on the relationship between mortality salience and self-esteem striving. Participants were exposed to essays arguing either in favor of or against the existence of an afterlife, and reminded about death or a control topic. Mortality salience led to increase...

There is a growing body of evidence indicating that people spontaneously make trait inferences while observing the behavior of others. The present article reports a series of 5 experiments that examined the influence of stereotypes on the spontaneous inference of traits. Results consistently showed weaker spontaneous trait inferences for stereotype...

There is a growing body of evidence indicating that people spontaneously make trait inferences while observing the behavior of others. The present article reports a series of 5 experiments that examined the influence of stereotypes on the spontaneous inference of traits. Results consistently showed weaker spontaneous trait inferences for stereotype...

This study investigated the role of attitude strength as a moderator variable with regard to the direction of the relation between attitudes and behavior. The hypothesis was tested that strong attitudes guide behavior, whereas weak attitudes follow behavior in accordance with self-perception principles. The study (N = 106) consisted of two sessions...

This article explores the links between implicit self-esteem and the automatic self (D. L. Paulhus, 1993). Across 4 studies, name letter evaluations were positively biased, confirming that implicit self-esteem is generally positive (A. G. Greenwald & M. R. Banaji, 1995). Study 1 found that this name letter bias was stable over a 4-week period. Stud...

Previous research has revealed that when individuals are confronted with criticism of a personally relevant group, mortality salience can lead to either derogation of the source of criticism or distancing from the group. In this article, the authors investigated closure as a potential moderator of these reactions. In Study 1, mortality salience led...

Previous research has revealed that when individuals are confronted with criticism of a personally relevant group, mortality salience can lead to either derogation of the source of criticism or distancing from the group. In this article, the authors investigated closure as a potential moderator of these reactions. In Study 1, mortality salience led...

In two experiments the relation between past contact, stereotypic associative strength, and stereotype activation effects on memory performance was investigated. It was hypothesized that, for some stereotypes, contact can lead to the development of stronger stereotypical associations. Associative strength, in turn, was expected to determine stereot...

In a cross-sectional field study we found, as predicted, that performance differences between members of semi-autonomous teams were associated with feelings of unfairness. On the basis of equity theory we hypothesized that the relationship between performance differences and unfairness feelings would be moderated for suckers, i.e., team members wit...

In this study, we tested the hypothesis that heightened self-focus would eliminate effects of stereotype activation on overt behavior. Our hypothesis was derived from the literature on conscious attention and self-focus and on recent treatments of action control. Specifically, our hypothesis was based on the notion that self-focus makes alternative...

In the literature, youth culture has been addressed in two distinct ways: the aesthetic approach, which has led to criticism of youth culture, and the empirical approach, in which the functions and benefits of youth culture have been stressed. In this article, Terror Management Theory (TMT) is used to provide a functional approach to youth culture....

Drawing from self-affirmation theory (C. M. Steele, 1988) and L. L. Martin and A. Tesser's (1989, 1996) theory of ruminative thinking, the authors hypothesized that people stop ruminating about a frustrated goal when they can affirm an important aspect of the self. In 3 experiments participants were given failure feedback on an alleged IQ test. Fai...

This study examines the individuation versus categorization of men and women. Several researchers have argued for structural status differences between men and women - men occupy societal positions of high status, and women positions of low status. This line of research predicts that male participants will individuate other men, but categorize wome...

The present study investigates effects of numerical group composition on categorization and individual recall of group members in a name-matching paradigm. Relative group size was independently varied for sex (male minority, equal sex groups, female minority) and academic status (teacher minority, equal academic groups, student minority). The resul...

The authors studied the determinants of associative strength of stereotypes. Based on the literature on associative learning and on assumptions derived from a functional view of stereotyping, the authors hypothesized that the strength of stereotypical associations was determined by two parameters: If (a) central tendency of a trait is high and (b)...

The study investigated participants' judgements of the defendant's guilt, severity of punishment and memory of information concerning a crime presented earlier, as a function of activated stereotype (positive versus negative) and cognitive load (i.e. self-paced versus quick processing pace). As hypothesized, it was found that judgement of guilt, pu...

The study investigated participants' judgements of the defendant's guilt, severity of punishment and memory of information concerning a crime presented earlier, as a function of activated stereotype (positive versus negative) and cognitive load (i.e. self-paced versus quick processing pace). As hypothesized, it was found that judgement of guilt, pu...

Research on automatic behavior demonstrates the ability of stereotypes to elicit stereotype-consistent behavior. Social judgment research proposes that whereas traits and stereotypes elicit assimilation, priming of exemplars can elicit judgmental contrast by evoking social comparisons. This research extends these findings by showing that priming ex...

This paper summarizes research on determinants of repeated behaviors, and the deci- sion processes underlying them. The present research focuses on travel mode choices as an example ofsuch behaviors. It is proposed that when behavior is performed repeatedly and becomes habitual, it is guided by automated cognitive processes, rather than being prece...

A meta-analysis (N=229) was performed to test effects of group membership and identification on the use of (sub)categories across five of our own experiments. In each experiment a name matching paradigm was used to investigate the extent to which (sub)categories were used to organize social information in memory. Four subcategories (male students,...

The authors tested and confirmed the hypothesis that priming a stereotype or trait leads to complex overt behavior in line with this activated stereotype or trait. Specifically, 4 experiments established that priming the stereotype of professors or the trait intelligent enhanced participants' performance on a scale measuring general knowledge. Also...

A field experiment investigated the prediction and change in repeated behaviour in the domain of travel mode choices. Car use during seven days was predicted from habit strength (measured by self-reported frequency of past behaviour, as well as by a more covert measure based on personal scripts incorporating the behaviour), and antecedents of behav...

A field experiment investigated the prediction and change in repeated behaviour in the domain of travel mode choices. Car use during seven days was predicted from habit strength (measured by self-reported frequency of past behaviour, as well as by a more covert measure based on personal scripts incorporating the behaviour), and antecedents of behav...

This study tested the hypothesis that the effect of in-group-serving expectancy biases on memory and judgement is moderated by processing goal. In-group-serving biases in both recall and judgements (estimated frequencies of desirable and undesirable in-group and out-group behaviour, evaluative ratings) were hypothesized to be stronger when processi...