Michael Diehl

Universität Mannheim · School of Social Sciences

In two correlational studies (N = 112 and N = 210) we tested the assumption that cultural and economic conservatism should correspond to the two value dimensions defined by Schwartz (1994). We also surveyed participants’ attitudes on the refugee crisis. Results confirmed differential relationships between values and dimensions of conservatism but s...

Recent research suggests that different motivational bases underlie economic and cultural conservatism. Different political messages may address these different motivational bases. This article investigates the hypothesis that gain frames and achievement frames are more persuasive for participants high in economic conservatism and for economic cons...

Recent research suggests that a prevention focus may be related to cultural conservatism, while a promotion focus may be related to economic conservatism. We investigate the hypothesis that prevention-framed messages are perceived as more persuasive by participants high in cultural conservatism and when used to argue for cultural conservative polit...

Based on research regarding the role of attitudinal ambivalence in the validity of attitudes in predicting behavior, we propose job ambivalence as a promising concept for job satisfaction research. In particular, we argue that job ambivalence (i.e., coexistence of positive and negative evaluations of one's job) may moderate the relationship between...

Various mostly cross-sectional studies have established that job satisfaction is related to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). A major goal of the present study was to show that job ambivalence (i.e., the coexistence of positive and negative job evaluations) moderates the job satisfaction-OCB relationship. To this end, job satisfaction, job...

Team diversity may lead to a categorization of teammates as ingroup versus outgroup members. Therefore, the question arises whether there would be more permissiveness in reaction to ingroup free-riders than outgroup free-riders. To test this hypothesis, subjects were randomly assigned to one of two reward conditions (equity versus equality) and had...

The present article is a report about a quantitative study based on 679 youth camps and international youth encounters in Europe which took place between 2005 and 2010. The questionnaires addressed the participants (asking for their experiences), the workers (asking for their aims) and the leaders (asking for basic data). Selected data (5.136 parti...

This research deals with the interplay of mood and multiple source characteristics in regard to persuasion processes and attitudes. In a four-factorial experiment, mood (positive vs. negative), source consensus status (majority vs. minority), source trustworthiness (high vs. low), and message strength (strong vs. weak) were manipulated. Results wer...

Two experiments are reported which test Rokeach's belief congruence theory (BCT) against predictions from Tajfel's social identity theory (SIT). It is the basic assumption of BCT that discrimination of out-group members is caused by perceived attitudinal dissimilarity between in-group and out-group members. Since, according to SIT, discrimination s...

The concept of attitudinal ambivalence refers to the degree to which an attitude object is evaluated positively and negatively at the same time. As is argued in the present chapter, ambivalence is an aspect of attitude strength which is likely to have consequences with respect to its impact on information processing, the persistence of the respecti...

The present studies examine how perceived temporal distance from past selves influences perceptions of the current self. Participants recalled their past self either at age 9 or 15. These two past selves differ in levels of identification with gender and thus denote different standards of comparison. Three hypotheses were tested. Temporal distance...

Previous research on the question of whether matching message content to the functional basis of people's attitudes may lead to biased message processing has been inconclusive. In particular, existing evidence is open to reinterpretation such that matched strong arguments led to more attitudinal agreement because they were scrutinized more effortfu...

Participants were presented with a segment of the 2002 Schroeder-Stoiber TV debate, in which the two candidates running for the post of German Chancellor argued for clearly different positions. Prior to presentation of the segment in either audiovisual, audio, or written modality, participants' politician preference was measured. Position agreement...

Zusammenfassung. Erstmals wurden in einer experimentellen Untersuchung 152 Teilnehmende an einem Assessment Center instruiert, sich flexibel, d. h. situationsangemessen oder sich charakterstark, d. h. prinzipientreu zu verhalten. In einer Kontrollbedingung wurde keine solche Instruktion gegeben. Bei allen Teilnehmenden wurde zusätzlich das disposit...

Group brainstorming and collaborative remembering are two research lines studying social influence on cognitive processes of knowledge retrieval. Both show that coacting others impair performance due to production blocking and/or retrieval strategy disruption. There is no evidence indicating performance enhancing effects of being cued. In two exper...

A study was conducted to examine the hypothesis that matching (vs. mismatching) the source of a persuasive message to the functional basis of recipients’ attitudes may lead to positively biased processing. Under conditions conducive to effortful processing, high and low self-monitors were presented with a persuasive message ascribed to a source tha...

This study examines the contribution of a personality variable in motivation losses in group performance. Differences in the endorsement of the ‘Protestant Work Ethic’ can account for variance in motivation losses in group work. Male student scores on the Mirels- Garrett Protestant Work Ethic Scale and Ho’s Australian Work Ethic Scale as well...

Two studies examined the role of perceived self-rival similarity in the experience of romantic jealousy, which is assumed to reflect threats to self-evaluation. Self–other similarity is one factor that determines whether social comparison yields assimilation or contrast. Based on the premise that people want their romantic partners to see themselve...

Based on a conceptual analysis and existing research, the authors propose that the three source dimensions specified in the ANOVA model play similar roles in persuasion as other source characteristics (e.g., expertise). Two studies test assumptions derived from this approach regarding the effects of different combinations of consistency and consens...

Self-other comparisons frequently evoke contrastive reactions, especially when the comparison dimension is relevant and when people strive to maintain or preserve a positive self-evaluation. In three studies, normal-weight women were asked to gauge satisfaction with their body weight. In Study 1, self-evaluation was affected by accessible distincti...

Three studies tested the hypothesis that focus of comparison moderates the influence of comparison standards on relationship satisfaction. Participants were asked to evaluate either their current relationships or their alternative relationships relative to an external comparison standard: a romantic stereotype (Study 1) or others' relationships (St...

This chapter builds on some 15 years of research on group idea generation carried out at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and Utrecht University, The Netherlands. During these years, three questions have been the primary focus of attention: How can the productivity loss of brainstorming groups be explained? How can productivity of these groups...

Participants' preference for one of two politicians running for the post of Chancellor in Germany was measured. Under conditions conducive to effortful processing, participants were then presented with a persuasive message ascribed to one of these two sources. The message was either unambiguous strong, unambiguous weak, or ambiguous. Different from...

Performance matching due to social comparison has been proposed as one explanation for the observed productivity loss in group brainstorming (Brown & Paulus, 1996; Paulus & Dzindolet, 1993). According to Festinger (1954), however, social comparison should not lead to performance matching but rather to competition. In our first experiment, we tested...

It is argued that previous persuasion research has been concerned predominantly with the role of single source characteristics (e.g., expertise) for attitude change and thus has failed to consider the role of multiple source characteristics. This was done in two experiments that tested the hypothesis that recipients would scrutinize a message more...

To test for the effect of multiple source information on message scrutiny, in a three-factorial experiment source likability, source expertise, and argument quality were manipulated independently. In line with predictions, results indicated heightened message scrutiny in the case of inconsistent as compared to consistent source information. Thus, a...

Hypothesized that attitude judgments about unfamiliar objects are affected by the evaluative inconsistency of relevant attributes. It was further predicted that individuals' perceived self-efficacy moderates the effect of inconsistency on attitude latencies: Individuals with high perceived self-efficacy in regard to systematic processing are expect...

Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that stronger degrees of ambivalence attenuate the attitude-behavior correspondence. We also tested the hypothesis that the weaker attitude-behavior correspondence at higher levels of ambivalence may be due to the lower temporal stability of highly ambivalent attitudes. To ensure that these hypothes...

Findings in previous research on the effectiveness of computer brainstorming groups as compared to other kinds of brainstorming groups are equivocal with regard to the quantity and quality of idea production. Nevertheless, using computer-mediated communication is often recommended to enhance idea production in brainstorming groups. This recommendat...

Zusammenfassung: In einer Studie mit 128 Vpn wurde gezeigt, daß das nach Bedrohung des personalen Selbst aktivierte Zugehörigkeitsbedürfnis durch soziale Gruppen, wie Brewer vorhersagt, nicht aber durch Kategorien befriedigt wird. Ein positiver Zusammenhang zwischen Bedürfnisbefriedigung und Selbstwertbilanz deutet zudem auf eine Reduzierung des en...

Zusammenfassung: In zwei Experimenten wurde uberpruft, ob eine erhohte relative Verfugbarkeit des Erfolges von Jan Ullrich bei der Tour de France 1997 bei Deutschen zu einer starkeren Identifikation mit ihrer Nation fuhrt. In Experiment 1 wurde die relative Verfugbarkeit des Erfolges von Jan Ullrich direkt mit Hilfe eines Fragebogens manipuliert, i...

We hypothesize that, when encountering a new or unfamiliar attitude object that has both positiveandnegative attributes, such evaluatively inconsistent information leads toattitudinal ambivalence,that is, a coexistence of positive and negative evaluation of the particular object. By drawing upon the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Liberman, &...

According to the prototype-matching model of decision making decisions are based on available alternatives which are compared with the activated prototype in the respective context. The similarity of alternatives to the prototype determines preferences and decision making. The most fundamental aspects of the model have been tested in five studies w...

Presents an overview of small group research (SGR) conducted in the German-speaking countries between 1984 and 1995. It may be seen as a complementary review to the work by U. Becker-Beck (1994) and J. F. Schneider (1990), supplementing (1) the survey by J. M. Levine and R. L. Moreland (1992) in the Annual Review of Psychology, which included chief...

During the last few years social psychologists have increasingly been engaged in studying work motivation in groups. Essentially, two different experimental paradigms can be distinguished: the paradigm of social loafing and the paradigm of free-riding. Social loafing can be observed when there are no contingent rewards to the individual because of...

There is pervasive evidence that people produce more ideas and more good ideas when working alone rather than in groups. This chapter will first review the evidence for the productivity loss in brainstorming groups and then evaluate the various theoretical explanations which have been offered to account for these findings in the light of empirical...

The illusion of group effectivity refers to the belief, persistent despite contradictory empirical evidence, that groups can stimulate creativity. This article uses unpublished data from the authors' research on brainstorming to illustrate the illusion of group effectivity and then presents a theoretical interpretation of this illusion based on two...

The illusion of group effectivity refers to the persistent belief that groups can stimulate creativity, in spite of consistent evidence that people are more productive when generating ideas individually rather than in groups. The first part of the article uses unpublished data from our research on brainstorming to illustrate the illusion of group e...

Four experiments were conducted to identify the mechanisms that mediate the impact of production blocking on the productivity of idea-generating groups and to test procedural arrangements that could lessen its negative impact. Experiment 1 manipulated the length of group and individual sessions. Although Experiment 1 failed to find a closing of the...

According to Taifel's accentuation theory, national stereotypes can be thought of as the correlation between trait dimensions and national affiliations, This correlation is high when the trait shows high homogeneity within and high distinctiveness between the national groups. The present study tested the hypothesis that a trait's distinctiveness wo...

This article addresses the inconsistency in the conclusions of Mullen, Johnson, and Salas's meta-analysis with the findings of a series of experiments conducted by Diehl and Stroebe (1987). We first question whether metaanalytic procedures can be profitably applied to an area in which a relatively small number of studies manipulated a limited numbe...

Intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm (MGP), which is usually invoked in support of social identity theory (SIT), seems to contradict every principle of social justice. A contradiction to equity theory (ET), however, exists only if one is committed to the transferability of ET from intragroup to intergroup relations. But even in t...

Studied the effects of cross-categorization of groups on intergroup discrimination. It was hypothesized that crossing 2 dimensions of social categorization leads to overlapping group memberships and a reduction in intergroup discrimination. In addition, it was predicted that there would be more discrimination against groups that differ on both dime...

An extension of the motivational assumptions of the heuristic model and the elaboration likelihood model of attitude change to counter attitudinal advocacy was tested. In a series of studies on the role of social support in attitude change following counter attitudinal advocacy, Stroebe and Diehl (1981) demonstrated that social support reduced atti...

We conducted four experiments to investigate free riding, evaluation apprehension, and production blocking as explanations of the difference in brainstorming productivity typically observed between real and nominal groups. In Experiment 1, we manipulated assessment expectations in group and individual brainstorming. Although productivity was higher...

Diss. : Sozialwissenschaft : Tübingen : 1984. Bibliogr. p. 241-260.

Tested dissonance and attribution theory predictions regarding the effect of social support on attitude change due to counterattitudinal advocacy in 4 studies. Social support among 67 college students who were given course credit was manipulated in a counterattitudinal essay-writing situation by the compliance or noncompliance of a confederate. Con...