Stefan Stieger

Karl Landsteiner Privatuniversität für Gesundheitswissenschaften | KL

The construct of flourishing, which refers to a high level of wellbeing, is a key concept in the field of positive psychology. Nevertheless, despite the proliferation of questionnaires attempting to measure wellbeing and flourishing, there is still an ongoing debate in the scientific community about the definition and assessment of both, which make...

According to the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge, people can truly know something only if they have a belief that is both justified and true (i.e., knowledge is JTB). This account was challenged by Gettier, who argued that JTB does not explain knowledge attributions in certain situations, later called “Gettier-type cases,” wherein...

Previous studies have shown that exposure to simulated natural environments can elevate state body appreciation, but stimulus sets have been limited to the use of images and 2-dimensional (2D) film. To extend this work, we examined the relative impact of images, 2D film, and a 360-degree immersive film on immediate, state body appreciation. A total...

Though people usually imagine the typical person as a man rather than a woman, the effect is mixed for racial groups and understudied among traditionally male social groups (e.g., police and criminals) and non-U.S. populations. Results from a survey (N > 5000) collected via a globally distributed laboratory network in over 40 regions demonstrated t...

Detachment from nature is contributing to the environmental crisis and reversing this trend requires detailed monitoring and targeted interventions to reconnect people to nature. Most tools measuring nature exposure and attachment were developed in high-income countries and little is known about their robustness across national and linguistic group...

The good and bad impacts of social media on individuals and societies remain poorly understood and highly debated. An often-discussed, yet little-studied worry about social media usage is that it may breed diminished social and emotional abilities. Here, we tested this assumption across three studies with adult samples (N = 316, 1,879, 903). We use...

Biases in favor of culturally prevalent social ingroups are ubiquitous, but random assignment to arbitrary experimentally created social groups is also sufficient to create ingroup biases (i.e., the minimal group effect; MGE). The extent to which ingroup bias arises from specific social contexts versus more general psychological tendencies remains...

Laughter is a universal, nonverbal vocal expression of broad significance for humans. Interestingly, rather little is known about how often we laugh and how laughter is associated with our personality. In a large, event-based, experience sampling method study (N = 52; k = 9,261 assessments) using wrist-worn wearables and a physical analogue scale,...

The experience sampling method (ESM) allows for a high degree of ecological validity compared to laboratory research, at the cost of greater effort for participants. It would therefore benefit from implementations that reduce participant effort. In the present paper, we introduce a screenless wrist-worn one-button wearable as an unobtrusive measure...

Transliminality refers to permeable mental boundaries that entail a susceptibility to, and awareness of, material from unconscious sources and the external environment. Here, we examined the extent to which transliminality is associated with the personality trait of Openness to Experience. Three samples of visitors to art galleries (total N = 770)...

Objective This study sought to evaluate Terror Management Theory (TMT) assumptions about death awareness and its psychological impact in the context of a real-world war situation with high external validity. We examined if factors such as habituation to war circumstances and psychological resilience could buffer the effects on civilians’ anxiety, p...

The inescapable fact that human life is perpetually embedded in a tangible biogeophysical environment-and the consequences that this has for individuals and societies-have long fascinated scholars of all backgrounds. Technological progress and the advent of big data have spurred ever-more precise attempts to quantify our biogeophysical environments...

This paper introduces ESMira, a server and mobile app (Android, iOS) developed for research projects using experience sampling method (ESM) designs. ESMira offers a very simple setup process and ease of use, while being free, decentralized, and open-source (source code is available on GitHub). The ongoing development of ESMira started in early 2019...

The Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) is a widely used measure of a core facet of the positive body image construct. However, extant research concerning measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across a large number of nations remains limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset – with data collected between 2020 and 2022 – to asse...

Interest in the psychology of misinformation has exploded in recent years. Despite ample research, to date there is no validated framework to measure misinformation susceptibility. Therefore, we introduce Verification done, a nuanced interpretation schema and assessment tool that simultaneously considers Veracity discernment, and its distinct, meas...

Mental simulation theories of language comprehension propose that people automatically create mental representations of objects mentioned in sentences. Mental representation is often measured with the sentence-picture verification task, wherein participants first read a sentence that implies the object property (i.e., shape and orientation). Partic...

During the lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, many people tried to compensate for limited face-to-face interaction by increasing digital communication. Results of a four-week experience sampling study in the German-speaking countries (N = 411 participants; k = 9791 daily questionnaires) suggest, however, that digital communication was...

People vary both in their embrace of their society’s traditions, and in their perception of hazards as salient and necessitating a response. Over evolutionary time, traditions have offered avenues for addressing hazards, plausibly resulting in linkages between orientations toward tradition and orientations toward danger. Emerging research documents...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures...

Stress-induced diseases and the severe consequences of chronic stress have been rising steadily over the past several decades. To examine the effectiveness of watching humorous videos as an easily-accessible, adaptive coping-strategy, a preregistered field-based experience-sampling method experiment was conducted (3 weeks) by using a unique design...

Interoception refers to the processing of stimuli originating within the body and is widely considered a multidimensional construct. However, there remains a lack of consensus regarding the definition and measurement of the subjective, self-reported component, referred to here as interoceptive sensibility. As a contribution to knowledge on the topi...

Voluntary isolation is one of the most effective methods for individuals to help prevent the transmission of diseases such as COVID-19. Understanding why people leave their homes when advised not to do so and identifying what contextual factors predict this non-compliant behavior is essential for policymakers and public health officials. To provide...

Social face evaluation is a common and consequential element of everyday life based on the judgement of trustworthiness. However, the particular facial regions that guide such trustworthiness judgements are largely unknown. It is also unclear whether different facial regions are consistently utilized to guide judgments for different ethnic groups,...

Social media use is consistently associated with more negative body image, but much of this literature is cross-sectional and/or lacks ecological validity. To overcome these limitations, we examined associations between everyday social media engagement and appearance satisfaction using an experience sampling method. Fifty participants from Central...

A quick overview of an open-source firmware solution for facilitating the experience sampling method on the LilyGo T-Watch.

The COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in t...

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about...

People vary in the extent to which they embrace their society’s traditions, impacting a range of social and political phenomena. People also vary in the degree to which they perceive disparate dangers as salient and necessitating a response. Over evolutionary time, traditions likely regularly offered direct and indirect avenues for addressing hazar...

The colloquial term “hangry” refers to the notion that people become angry when hungry, but very little research has directly determined the extent to which the relationship between hunger and negative emotions is robust. Here, we examined associations between everyday experiences of hunger and negative emotions using an experience sampling method....

The study of moral judgements often centres on moral dilemmas in which options consistent with deontological perspectives (that is, emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with options consistent with utilitarian judgements (that is, following the greater good based on consequences). Greene et al. (2009) showed that psychol...

In adolescence, smartphone use in general and social media use in particular has often been associated with negative effects, such as higher anxiety levels and body dissatisfaction. Other outcomes – such as fundamental cognitive abilities and skills (e.g., intelligence, information processing, spatial perception) – have rarely been the focus of res...

Semantic priming has been studied for nearly 50 years across various experimental manipulations and theoretical frameworks. These studies provide insight into the cognitive underpinnings of semantic representations in both healthy and clinical populations; however, they have suffered from several issues including generally low sample sizes and a la...

Significance Communicating in ways that motivate engagement in social distancing remains a critical global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study tested motivational qualities of messages about social distancing (those that promoted choice and agency vs. those that were forceful and shaming) in 25,718 people in 89 countries...

Background Diabetes mellitus is one of the four priority non-communicable diseases worldwide. It can lead to serious long-term complications and produces significant costs. Due to the chronicle character of the disease, it requires continuous medical treatment and good therapy adherence of those suffering. Therefore, diabetes self-management educat...

In situ self-reports are a useful tool in the social sciences to supplement laboratory experiments. Smartwatches are a promising form factor to realize these methods. However, to date, no user-friendly, general-purpose solution has been available. This article therefore presents a newly developed, free and open-source firmware that facilitates the...

Exposure to natural environments has been shown to be associated with more positive body image, but much of the existing research is limited to Western European nations and little is known about the robustness of these associations in other national contexts. In this protocol paper, we present a conceptual model of the direct and indirect associati...

Background: the context and purpose of the study Diabetes mellitus is one of the four priority non-communicable diseases worldwide. It can lead to serious long-term complications and produces significant costs. Due to the chronicle character of the disease, it requires continuous medical treatment and good therapy adherence of those suffering. Ther...

Mountains—mythic and majestic—have fueled widespread speculation about their effects on character. Emerging empirical evidence has begun to show that physical topography is indeed associated with personality traits, especially heightened openness. Here, we extend this work to the domain of personal values, linking novel large-scale individual value...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and attendant lockdown measures present serious threats to emotional well-being worldwide. Here, we examined the extent to which being outdoors (versus indoors), the experience of loneliness, and screen-time are associated with emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic using an experiencing sampling metho...

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about...

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about...

Interest in the psychology of misinformation has exploded in recent years. Despite ample research, to date there is no psychometrically validated instrument to measure people’s ability to detect misinformation. To overcome this, we introduce the Verification done framework, an overarching interpretation schema, that simultaneously considers overall...

Direct vs computer-assisted image-based measurements of the second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D), a widely studied assumed negative correlate of prenatal testosterone, were compared in a sample of 96 men. Both methods yielded comparable associations of 2D:4D with a range of sexually differentiated personality measures, including the Big Five, aggre...

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov’s valence–dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear w...

New technologies (e.g., smartphones) have made it easier to conduct Experience Sampling Method (ESM) studies and thereby collect longitudinal data in situ. However, limiting interruption burden (i.e., the strain of being pulled out of everyday life) remains a challenge, especially when assessments are frequent and/or must be made immediately after...

The Body Acceptance by Others Scale (BAOS) measures the degree to which individuals perceive body acceptance by others, but its factor structure is questionable. Here, we developed a revision of the BAOS (i.e., the BAOS-2) by designing novel items reflective of generalised perceptions of body acceptance by others. In three studies, we examined the...

Regional differences in personality are associated with a range of consequential outcomes. But which factors are responsible for these differences? Frontier settlement theory suggests that physical topography is a crucial factor shaping the psychological landscape of regions. Hence, we investigated whether topography is associated with regional var...

The construct of body acceptance by others (i.e., the degree to which an individual perceives acceptance for their appearance by others) is central to conceptual models of positive body image and adaptive eating styles. It is typically measured using the 10-item Body Acceptance by Others Scale (BAOS; Avalos & Tylka, 2006), but emerging research has...

Exposure to nature is associated with improved psychological well-being and positive body image. Here, we examined whether everyday exposure to natural environments is associated with state body image outcomes (and, for comparative reasons, state happiness) using an experience sampling method. One-hundred-and-seven participants completed a 30-day e...

Objectives: Daily life behaviour can be studied by smart mobile devices. The current study investigated associations between personality traits and smartphone usage in daily routine. Methods: 526 participants used the Track Your Daily Routine smartphone app (TYDR) for 48 days, on average (SD = 63.2, range 2 to 304). The Big Five Inventory 2 (BFI-2)...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and attendant lockdown measures present serious threats to psychological well-being worldwide. Here, we examined the extent to which being outdoors (versus indoors), the experience of loneliness, and screen-time are associated with psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic using an experiencing sampli...

Issues of construct commonality and distinguishability in body image research are typically addressed using structural equal models, but such methods can sometimes present problems of interpretation when data patterns are complex. One recent-developed tool that could help in summarising complex data patterns is Item Pool Visualisation (IPV), an ill...

There is ample evidence that watching sports induces strong emotions that translate into manifold consequential behaviours. However, it is rather ill-understood how exactly spectators’ emotions unfold during soccer matches and what determines their intensity. To address these questions, we used the 2018 FIFA World Cup as a natural quasi-experiment...

The Breast Size Satisfaction Survey (BSSS) was established to assess women’s breast size dissatisfaction and breasted experiences from a cross-national perspective. A total of 18,541 women were recruited from 61 research sites across 40 nations and completed measures of current-ideal breast size discrepancy, as well as measures of theorised anteced...

Social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, attract millions of users worldwide by offering highly interactive social communications. Although this has many advantages, previous research has suggested there are also drawbacks (e.g., stalking, addiction, invasion of privacy). The question, therefore, arises as to whether Facebook – currently th...