Michael Häfner

Berlin University of the Arts | UdK · Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation

The present work investigates if ease/difficulty experiences associated with social comparison information shape the direction of the comparison. In particular, we test the hypothesis that standards of comparison associated with experiences of ease lead to assimilation whereas standards processed under experiences of difficulty result in comparativ...

Salivation to food cues is typically explained in terms of mere stimulus-response links. However, food cues seem to especially increase salivation when food is attractive, suggesting a more complex psychological process. Adopting a grounded cognition perspective, we suggest that perceiving a food triggers simulations of consuming it, especially whe...

Purpose of review: Mindfulness-based interventions are becoming increasingly popular as a means to facilitate healthy eating. We suggest that the decentering component of mindfulness, which is the metacognitive insight that all experiences are impermanent, plays an especially important role in such interventions. To facilitate the application of de...

Recent research on so-called embodied cognitions strengthens the current view that the body and the mind cannot be separated in producing cognitions. But how and when does the body talk to the mind? Drawing on the notion that bodily processes are transformed into mental action through experiences, it is argued that embodied cognitions should be mod...

Clothing behaviour remains an understudied research area within social psychology. Through the present research, we aim to anchor attire as an empirical research subject by investigating the psychological properties of one of its functionalities, namely, to provide protection. We argue that attire's undisputed role in shielding humans from environm...

This study aims to explain the dynamics of compliance towards the measures to contain the coronavirus in 2020 by drawing on the theory of psychological reactance. We discuss our findings in a model that distinguishes between catalysts and buffers of reactance arousal on an individual level and hypothesises how these may lead to compliant or resista...

From a social psychological perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated protective measures affected individuals’ social relations and basic psychological needs. We aim to identify sources of need frustration (stressors) and possibilities to bolster need satisfaction (buffers). Particularly, we highlight emerging empirical research in whi...

Four experiments examined whether reactions to mental imagery can be reduced by the mindfulness component of decentering, that is, the insight that experiences are impermanent mental states. In Experiments 1a, 1b, and 1c, participants vividly imagined an unpleasant autobiographical event or a rewarding food. When instructed to adopt a decentering p...

Abstract Four experiments examined whether reactions to mental imagery can be reduced by the mindfulness component of decentering, i.e. the insight that experiences are impermanent mental states. In Experiment 1, participants vividly imagined an unpleasant autobiographical event (1a, 1b) or a rewarding food (1c). When instructed to adopt a decenter...

In this article, we reflect on 50 years of the journal Social Psychology. We interviewed colleagues who have witnessed the history of the journal. Based on these interviews, we identified three crucial periods in Social Psychology's history, that are (a) the early development and further professionalization of the journal, (b) the reunification of...

The psychological literature has shown that sharing one’s emotions with loved ones does not alleviate distress. We challenge this notion. In four studies (N=2581), participants were asked to recall an emotional episode (Studies 1a-2: sadness, fear, affection, joy, anger) and write about this episode. Not replicating prior work, participants shared...

Previous research suggests that people's representations of alcoholic beverages play an important role in drinking behavior. However, relatively little is known about the contents of these representations. Here, we introduce the property generation task as a tool to explore these representations in detail. In a laboratory study (N = 110), and a bar...

Anger and aggression are frequent problems in deployed military personnel. A lowered threshold of perceiving and responding to threat can trigger impulsive aggression. This can be indicated by an exaggerated startle response. Fifty-two veterans with anger and aggression problems (Anger group) and 50 control veterans were tested using a startle expe...

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In the heat of the moment, people often impulsively take risks. Having unprotected sex, for example, can result in sexually transmitted infections. In three studies, we investigated a possible explanation for the increased sexual risk propensity of people in an impulsive state. In contrast to the intuitively appealing notion that they are less infl...

Regulatory fit theory predicts that motivation and performance are enhanced when individuals pursue goals framed in a way that fits their regulatory orientation (promotion vs. prevention focus). Our aim was to test the predictions of the theory when individuals deal with change. We expected and found in three studies that regulatory fit is benefici...

An abundance of research has investigated the effects of motivational states on size estimates, with initially a strong focus on the functionality of size overestimations. We suggest and found, however, that goal-relevant objects can be over- and underestimated, depending on which size is goal congruent. Specifically, we found that people with a th...

People in an impulsive state are influenced mainly by the immediate incentive value of appetitive stimuli, whereas people in a reflective state usually also consider the (sometimes negative) long-term consequences of such stimuli. In order to consider all information, we hypothesize that, people in reflective states distribute their attention over...

People in an impulsive state are influenced mainly by the immediate incentive value of appetitive stimuli, whereas people in a reflective state usually also consider the (sometimes negative) long-term consequences of such stimuli. In order to consider all information, we hypothesize that, people in reflective states distribute their attention over...

Approach and avoidance are two basic motivational orientations. Their activation influences cognitive and perceptive processes: Previous work suggests that an approach orientation instigates a focus on larger units as compared to avoidance. Study 1 confirms this assumption using a paradigm that more directly taps a person's tendency to represent ob...

Generally, the accessibility of goal-related constructs is inhibited upon goal fulfillment. In line with this notion, the current studies explored whether violent computer games may reduce relative accessibility of aggression if the game involves the fulfillment of an aggressive goal. Specifically, in Study 1, participants who watched a trailer for...

The present research investigated whether accommodation, typically formulated as the tendency to deliberately inhibit a destructive reaction in response to a partner's destructive behavior, could also occur spontaneously. Supporting this notion, results of the first study revealed that participants respond to their partner's angry face with a spont...

In two experiments we show that the experience of processing fluency can be grounded in the motor system. We manipulated whether responses in a stimulus-response paradigm were congruent or incongruent with the orientation of graspable objects. Besides the typical affordance effect (Tucker & Ellis, 1998), namely a reaction time advantage for respons...

Recent findings suggest that the unconscious activation of the motivational orientations of approach and avoidance is accompanied by the adoption of a more global and a more local processing style, respectively. A global processing style, in turn, is assumed to instigate a focus on similarities whereas a local processing style is assumed to instiga...

We suggest that while approaching a target, individuals are tuned to cues indicating closeness. Conversely, while avoiding a target, individuals are tuned to cues indicating distance. for social targets, this means that approach should be associated with similarities whereas avoidance should be associated with differences between the self and the t...

This study addresses the advertising effectiveness of round and thin models. Integrating previous findings and theories, the authors predict and find that impulsive and reflective product evaluations as responses to thin and round advertisement models diverge. Specifically, four experiments indicate that impulsive product evaluations follow a primi...

Based on research concerning the effects of familiarity experiences and the inclusion-exclusion model, this study tests the counterintuitive prediction that particularly famous and therefore familiar media images trigger assimilative comparisons. As a straightforward test, participants in Experiment 1a were presented with either famous or nonfamous...

The main purpose of this study was to examine if disgust toward unpalatable foods would be reduced among food-deprived subjects and if this attenuation would occur automatically even under moderate levels of food deprivation. Subjects were either satiated or food deprived for 15 hours and electromyographic activity was recorded at the levator muscl...

Whereas a host of findings Suggest that people find ways to deal with threatening comparison information, such defense mechanisms are not typically reported in research oil the effects of exposure to idealized media images. The present research considers some of the reasons for this void and proposes that also methodological reasons might play an i...

Three studies examined how food deprivation influences the immediate valence of food stimuli as well as spontaneous motivational tendencies toward them. We assumed that immediate reactions towards food stimuli should be tuned to the basic needs of the organism. In Study 1, the immediate valence of food names as a function of need state was assessed...

This research addressed the determinants of self-evaluative assimilation and contrast after comparison to highly attractive models. Experiment 1 showed that the manipulation of the headlines in advertising campaigns sufficed to influence the direction of spontaneous comparisons to idealized models for both women and men. Experiment 2 replicated the...

The activation of social stereotypes can influence behavior outside of conscious awareness. It has been argued that while priming social stereotypes leads to behavioral assimilation, priming exemplars leads to behavioral contrast. Extending this theorizing, we argue that the activation of social stereotypes can also result in automatic behavioral c...