Rick Van Baaren

Rick Van Baaren
Radboud University | RU · Behavioural Science Institute

Prof. dr.

About

95
Publications
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise

Publications

Publications (95)
Article
Full-text available
Although self-persuasion is shown more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and intentions, its effectiveness in different cultures remains unclear. Furthermore, research suggests that Eastern individuals tend to incorporate close others in the self to a larger extent than Western individuals. Combining both lines of research, the...
Article
Full-text available
Unhealthy eating behavior has become one of the global health risks and thus needs to be influenced. Previous research found that self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and behavioral intentions, but the influence of persuadees’ cultural backgrounds remains unclear. We conducted two studies to investigate the...
Article
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Prior research has shown that our perception of time is compressed when we volitionally perform actions, a phenomenon referred to as temporal binding. In three studies, we investigated the degree to which contextual cues that signaled other agents and related to actions would influence binding, given that those cues may affect individual’s feelings...
Article
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Research has shown that self-persuasion is more effective in increasing smokers’ risk perception and decreasing short-term smoking behavior compared to the traditional direct persuasion. However, the role of self-construal, which is closely associated with how one perceives persuasive messages, is not explored. The current research filled this gap...
Article
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Self-persuasion (i.e., generating your own arguments) is often more persuasive than direct persuasion (i.e., being provided with arguments), even when the technique is applied in media messages by framing the message as a question. It is unclear, however, if these messages are more persuasive when viewed for a long period to allow more elaboration...
Article
In an experiment we examined whether participating in a Facebook group by generating anti-alcohol arguments (self-persuasion) is more persuasive than reading anti-alcohol posts of others (direct-persuasion) to change alcohol consumption, risk perception, and attitudes. Additionally, it was examined if actually posting in the group moderated persuas...
Article
Robots are becoming an integral part of society, yet our moral stance towards these non-living objects is unclear. In two experiments, we investigated whether anthropomorphic appearance and anthropomorphic attributions modulated people’s utilitarian decision-making about robotic agents. In Study I, participants were presented with moral dilemmas in...
Article
Full-text available
Self-persuasion (self-generation of arguments) is often a more effective influence technique than direct persuasion (providing arguments). However, the application of this technique in health media communications has received limited attention. In two experiments, it was examined whether self-persuasion can be successfully applied to antialcohol me...
Article
Full-text available
In the present study we investigated whether differences in the sense of agency influenced the effectiveness of both direct persuasion and self-persuasion techniques. By manipulating both the delay and contingency of the outcomes of actions, participants were led to experience either a low or high sense of agency. Participants were subsequently pre...
Article
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While action plans and intentions have been considered to be important factors contributing to the personal sense of causation known as agency, the present research is the first to empirically investigate how action plans influence agency. Participants in multiple studies were required to plan or not to plan ahead their actions. Results consistentl...
Article
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Background and Objectives Most blood donors stop donating blood at the beginning of their donor career. This intervention study aims to increase first-time return behaviour of newly registered donors using implementation intentions and explicit commitment techniques.Materials and Methods Newly registered donors (N = 937) received an extra informati...
Article
Anecdotal reports as well as behavioral studies have suggested that creative performance benefits from unconscious processes. So far, however, little is known about how creative ideas arise from the brain. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the neural correlates of creativity by means of structural MRI research. Given that unconscious an...
Article
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Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking...
Article
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Cognitive flexibility is one of the essential mental abilities underlying creative thinking. Previous findings have shown that cognitive flexibility can be enhanced by schema violations, and it has been suggested that active involvement is needed for schema violations to facilitate cognitive flexibility. The possibility that identification with an...
Article
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Research demonstrated that by reformulating smoking warnings into questions, defensive responses in smokers are reduced and smoking-related risk perception increases. We explored whether these positive outcomes can be generalised to actual behaviour. Participants saw either a movie presenting subheadings with smoking-related questions or statements...
Article
In two studies, we investigated the degree to which action primes, and acting upon those primes affect agency ratings. Participants performed left or right button-presses that generated tones, and were subsequently asked to indicate the degree to which they felt that they, instead of the computer, had caused the tones. Prior to button-presses, part...
Article
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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...
Article
People often ascribe human attributes to objects, a phenomenon named anthropomorphism. As research has mainly focused on explicitly measured attitudes towards objects, we investigated in four studies whether perceiving a non-biological agent behaving in a human-like manner influences meaningful social behaviour. Participants watched a video fragmen...
Conference Paper
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Behavioral mimicry is the nonconscious copying of an interaction partner’s behavior and is affected by social dynamics. Whereas it has been studied extensively in adults, little is known about the development of mimicry. The aims of this study were twofold, first to identify whether young children demonstrate mimicry and, second, to investigate whe...
Article
The present studies examined whether differences in Need for Cognitive Closure (NCC) were related to differences in regulatory control when confronted with authority. In two studies, levels of regulatory control were measured when participants resisted (Study 1) or prepared to resist the influence attempt of an authority figure (Study 2). Results s...
Article
For blood establishments it is important that blood donors return for a donation. Past research has stressed the importance of theory of planned behavior (TPB) on return behavior, but self-identity (SI) and organizational variables (OVs) might play a role as well. This study added SI and OVs to the TPB to identify the determinants for return behavi...
Article
Research shows that we spontaneously imitate people. Moreover, empathy predicts the degree of this non-conscious imitation. Little is known, however, if or how this expression of empathy is influenced by stable physical characteristics of our interaction-partners. In two studies, we tested whether attractiveness of others moderated the relation bet...
Article
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Offences committed by pedophiles are crimes that evoke serious public concern and outrage. Although recent research using implicit measures has shown promise in detecting deviant sexual associations, the discriminatory and predictive quality of implicit tasks has not yet surpassed traditional assessment methods such as questionnaires and phallometr...
Article
Background: In the Netherlands about 50% of whole blood donors return to give blood after an invitation to donate. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of donor return behaviour and to gain insight into the barriers to blood donation reported by the donors themselves. Materials and methods: A total of 4,901 whole blood donors were...
Article
Full-text available
Warning labels on cigarette packages rely on the negative health aspects of smoking. For smokers, however, smoking is related to positive as well as to negative outcomes. Positive smoking outcomes are shown to be crucial in activating smoking behaviour. Thus, this study compared current health warnings with warning labels contradicting positive out...
Article
The present study investigated the effect of sexually objectifying music video exposure on young women's implicit bodily self-perception and the moderating role of self-esteem. Fifty-six college women of normal weight were either exposed to three sexually objectifying music videos or three neutral music videos. Perceived and ideal body size were me...
Article
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Past research has linked creativity to unusual and unexpected experiences, such as early parental loss or living abroad. However, few studies have investigated the underlying cognitive processes. We propose that these experiences have in common a “diversifying” aspect and an active involvement, which together enhance cognitive flexibility (i.e., cr...
Article
Research has shown that helping behavior can be primed easily. However, helping decreases significantly in the presence of inhibition cues, signaling high costs for the executor. On the other hand, multiple studies demonstrated that helping behavior increases after being mimicked. The present study investigated whether imitation still increases hel...
Article
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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...
Article
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Recent studies showed that a period of unconscious thought can help when making complex decisions. Under some circumstances, unconscious thought improves decisions even more than conscious thought. Executive functioning depends on energy provided by glucose, and we know from previous research that the performance of various conscious processes dete...
Article
Today's world of continuous change thrives on creative individuals. Anecdotal reports suggest that creative performance benefits from unconscious processes. Empirical research on the role of the unconscious in creativity, though, is inconsistent and thus far has focused mainly on one aspect of the creative process – idea generation. This is the fir...
Article
Both scientists and artists have suggested that sleep facilitates creativity, and this idea has received substantial empirical support. In the current study, we investigate whether one can actively enhance the beneficial effect of sleep on creativity by covertly reactivating the creativity task during sleep. Individuals' creative performance was co...
Article
Full-text available
A meta-analysis was performed on the unconscious thought effect (UTE). All available published and unpublished data on unconscious thought were included. Our aims were to provide a statistically robust estimate of the effect size of the UTE, to identify significant moderators, and to discuss possible underlying processes of the UTE. To assess the U...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Ample survey research has shown that alcohol portrayals in movies affect the development of alcohol consumption in youth. Hence, there is preliminary evidence that alcohol portrayals in movies also directly influence viewers' drinking of alcohol while watching movies. One process that might account for these direct effects is imitation. The present...
Article
Full-text available
Facial expressions can trigger emotions: when we smile we feel happy, when we frown we feel sad. However, the mimicry literature also shows that we feel happy when our interaction partner behaves the way we do. Thus what happens if we express our sadness and we perceive somebody who is imitating us? In the current study, participants were presented...
Article
Action observation automatically activates corresponding motor representations in the observer, which is essential in coordinating actions with others. It is assumed that this co-representation system is activated by biological agents only. However, we often identify with biological agents, whereas this is not the case for non-biological agents. Th...
Article
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Coordinated action relies on shared representations between interaction partners: people co-represent actions of others in order to respond appropriately. However, little is known about the social factors that influence shared representations. We investigated whether actions performed by in-group and out-group members are represented differently, a...
Article
This study uses an experimental design to assess the effects of movie alcohol portrayal on alcohol consumption of young adults while watching a movie. Gender, weekly alcohol use and identification with the movie actor/character were assessed as moderators. A two (sex) × two (movie: alcohol or no portrayal of alcohol) between-subject design was used...
Article
We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that unconscious thought leads to an automatic weighting process whereby important decision attributes receive more weight, and unimportant decision attributes receive less weight. In three experiments, participants chose between cars with few important positive attributes and many unimportant negative attribu...
Article
The portrayal of older characters in television commercials has over time become more varied and positive. This study examines how different portrayals of older characters relate to self-stereotyping, a process through which older individuals apply their beliefs about older people in general to themselves and behave accordingly. The study thereby s...
Article
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...
Article
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The unconscious-thought effect refers to an improvement in decision making following distraction from the decision context for a period of time. The dominant explanation for this effect is that unconscious processes continue to deal with the problem during the distraction period. Recently, however, some researchers have proposed that unconscious th...
Article
Full-text available
Social psychological and developmental research revealed that imitation serves a fundamental social function. It has been shown that human beings have the tendency to automatically mirror the behavior of others-the so-called chameleon effect. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that being imitated leads to positive feelings toward the imitator. B...
Article
The present study examines the direct effects of television commercials advertising soda on actual sugar-sweetened soda consumption among young women. An experimental-observational study design was used, in which 51 female students (ages 18-29) were exposed to a 35-min movie clip, interrupted by two commercial breaks consisting of soda or water com...
Article
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Human mimicry is ubiquitous, and often occurs without the awareness of the person mimicking or the person being mimicked. First, we briefly describe some of the major types of nonconscious mimicry—verbal, facial, emotional, and behavioral—and review the evidence for their automaticity. Next, we argue for the broad impact of mimicry and summarize th...
Article
Full-text available
Mimicry and prosocial feelings are generally thought to be positively related. However, the conditions under which mimicry and liking are related largely remain unspecified. We advance this specification by examining the relationship between mimicry and liking more thoroughly. In two experiments, we manipulated an individual's a priori liking for a...
Article
Full-text available
This study examines whether smoking portrayal in movies or antismoking advertisements affect smoking intensity among young adults. We conducted an experimental study in which 84 smokers were randomly assigned using a two (no-smoking versus smoking portrayal in the movie) by three (two prosocial ads, two antismoking ads or one of each) factorial des...
Article
People judge, evaluate, and treat attractive people better than moderately attractive or unattractive people [Langlois, J. H., Kalakanis, L., Rubenstein, A. J., Larson, A., Hallam, M., & Smoot, M. (2000). Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 390–423]. The fact that individuals like attracti...
Article
In two experiments, we investigated the effects of expertise and mode of thought on the accuracy of people's predictions. Both experts and nonexperts predicted the results of soccer matches after conscious thought, after unconscious thought, or immediately. In Experiment 1, experts who thought unconsciously outperformed participants in all other co...
Article
Full-text available
One striking characteristic of human social interactions is unconscious mimicry; people have a tendency to take over each other's posture, mannerisms and behaviours without awareness. Our goal is to make the case that unconscious mimicry plays an important role in human social interaction and to show that mimicry is closely related to and moderated...
Article
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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...
Article
If perceptual and bodily states are closely linked and if perceiving action automatically leads to corresponding activations in one's own motor system, then why do not we imitate all the time? There is evidence suggesting that executive functioning (EF) may play a moderating role in inhibiting overt imitation [e.g. Luria, A. R. (1966). Higher corti...
Chapter
Numerous studies in the fields of social psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and social neuroscience have provided evidence of automatic imitation in humans, including preverbal children. People have a tendency to automatically and nonconsciously mimic the behaviors and mannerisms of their interaction partners, from face-rub...
Article
Full-text available
Three studies explored the effects of humour in advertising on brand name memory. Study 1 showed that humour impaired memory for products but enhanced memory for advertisements. Study 2 showed that brands that had been promoted in humorous advertisements were less accessible in memory than brands promoted in non‐humorous advertisements. Study 3 sep...
Article
Full-text available
Alcohol portrayal in movies and commercials is generally positive and might stimulate young people to drink. We tested experimentally whether portrayal of alcohol images in movies and commercials on television promotes actual drinking. In a naturalistic setting (a bar lab), young adult male pairs watched a movie clip for 1 h with two commercial bre...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Previous studies found that information is more persuasive when self-generated (high self-involvement), rather than when simply read or heard (low self-involvement). In two studies, we investigated whether differences in self-involvement concerning smoking issues would influence immediate smoking behaviour. As predicted, results indicate that parti...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
Aims: Alcohol portrayal in movies and commercials is generally positive and might stimulate young people to drink. We tested experimentally whether portrayal of alcohol images in movies and commercials on television promotes actual drinking. Methods: In a naturalistic setting (a bar lab), young adult male pairs watched a movie clip for 1 h with two...
Article
Human mimicry is ubiquitous, and often occurs without the awareness of the person mimicking or the person being mimicked. First, we briefly describe some of the major types of nonconscious mimicry—verbal, facial, emotional, and behavioral—and review the evidence for their automaticity. Next, we argue for the broad impact of mimicry and summarize th...
Article
Full-text available
The sharing of bodily states elicits in mimicker and mimickee corresponding conceptualisations, which facilitates liking. There are many studies showing the relatedness of mimicry and liking. However, the mimicry-liking link has not been investigated under conditions in which the mimickee is liked or disliked a priori. In two studies, we examined m...
Article
Full-text available
Mimicry is functional for empathy and bonding purposes. Studies on the consequences of mimicry at a behavioral level demonstrated that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. However, these previous studies focused on the mimickee. In the present paper, we investigated whether mimickers also become more helpful due to mimicry. In two studies, we have...
Article
Recent research has shown that unconscious thought can improve the quality of complex decisions [Dijksterhuis, A. (2004). Think different: The merits of unconscious thought in preference development and decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,87, 586–598; Dijksterhuis, A., Bos, M.W., Nordgren, L.F., & van Baaren, R. B. (2006)....
Article
Full-text available
This article investigates the effect of mimicry on consumer product consumption and appraisal. We propose and test two paths via which mimicry may influence product preferences. In the mimicking consumer path, we suggest that individuals automatically mimic the consumption behaviors of other people and that such mimicry then affects preferences tow...
Article
Full-text available
Previous research has demonstrated that nonconscious interpersonal mimicry engenders liking, affiliation, empathy, and other positive social consequences. Some of these consequences have recently been shown to go beyond the dyad. In other words, interpersonal mimicry not only affects the way we feel toward our immediate interaction partner, but als...
Article
People differ in the extent to which they feel psychologically connected and close to others. Whereas some people are individualistic and value uniqueness, other people are intrinsically more social and value belongingness to a greater extent. The present study investigated whether these different types of self‐construal and values expressed in adv...
Article
Examine whether smokers imitate smoking behaviour of strangers and to what extent this is moderated by the nature of social interactions. An experiment with a three (heavy smoking, light smoking, or no smoking condition) by two (warm versus cold social interaction condition) factorial design. Daily smoking young adults were exposed to same-gender c...
Article
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...
Article
Full-text available
Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing. On the basis of recent insights into the characteristics of conscious and unconscious thought, we tested the hypothesis that simple choices (such as between different towels or different sets of oven mitts) indeed produce bet...
Article
Full-text available
According to the feelings-as-information account, a person's mood state signals to him or her the valence of the current environment (N. Schwarz & G. Clore, 1983). However, the ways in which the environment automatically influences mood in the first place remain to be explored. The authors propose that one mechanism by which the environment influen...
Article
A study of tipping behavior in the Netherlands found that mimicry improved tips. When waitresses repeated customers' orders verbatim, they received larger tips than when they merely acknowledged or paraphrased the orders. Since restaurants in the Netherlands add service charges to patrons' checks, the size of any tip that customers leave can be tak...