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Reassigning responsibility is the most prominent and best-replicated intervention against escalating commitment (i.e., the failure to withdraw from losing courses of action). This intervention is considered effective because it reduces reinvestments after negative feedback in decision scenarios with a single reinvestment decision. However, we argue that any intervention against escalating commitment should fulfill two additional criteria. The first is temporal stability, that is, the beneficial effects of the intervention need to persist beyond a single reinvestment decision. The second is specific effectiveness, that is, the intervention should reduce commitment only if the project continues to fail after an initial setback (structural failure) but not if it recovers and is ultimately profitable (temporary failure). To subject reassignment of responsibility to this critical test of effectiveness, we introduce a modification of the escalation paradigm that allows testing for temporal stability and differentiates between structural and temporary failure. In the first of two experiments, we did not find evidence of temporal stability. Experiment 2 found persistent short-term effects of responsibility reassignment, but these effects were unspecific, reducing commitment to both losing and ultimately successful courses of action. Our findings question the usefulness of responsibility reassignment as an effective intervention against escalating commitment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Additional co-authors: Ivan Ropovik, Balazs Aczel, Lena F. Aeschbach, Luca Andrighetto, Jack D. Arnal, Holly Arrow, Peter Babincak, Bence E. Bakos, Gabriel Banik, Ernest Baskin, Radomir Belopavlovic, Michael H. Bernstein, Michal Bialek, Nicholas G. Bloxsom, Bojana Bodroža, Diane B. V. Bonfiglio, Leanne Boucher, Florian Bruhlmann, Claudia C. Brumbaugh, Erica Casini, Yiling Chen, Carlo Chiorri, William J. Chopik, Oliver Christ, Antonia M. Ciunci, Heather M. Claypool, Sean Coary, Marija V. Cˇolic, W. Matthew Collins, Paul G. Curran, Chris R. Day, Anna Dreber, John E. Edlund, Filipe Falcao, Anna Fedor, Lily Feinberg, Ian R. Ferguson, Maire Ford, Michael C. Frank, Emily Fryberger, Alexander Garinther, Katarzyna Gawryluk, Kayla Ashbaugh, Mauro Giacomantonio, Steffen R. Giessner, Jon E. Grahe, Rosanna E. Guadagno, Ewa Halasa, Rias A. Hilliard, Joachim Huffmeier, Sean Hughes, Katarzyna Idzikowska, Michael Inzlicht, Alan Jern, William Jimenez-Leal, Magnus Johannesson, Jennifer A. Joy-Gaba, Mathias Kauff, Danielle J. Kellier, Grecia Kessinger, Mallory C. Kidwell, Amanda M. Kimbrough, Josiah P. J. King, Vanessa S. Kolb, Sabina Kolodziej, Marton Kovacs, Karolina Krasuska, Sue Kraus, Lacy E. Krueger, Katarzyna Kuchno, Caio Ambrosio Lage, Eleanor V. Langford, Carmel A. Levitan, Tiago Jesse Souza de Lima, Hause Lin, Samuel Lins, Jia E. Loy, Dylan Manfredi, Łukasz Markiewicz, Madhavi Menon, Brett Mercier, Mitchell Metzger, Venus Meyet, Jeremy K. Miller, Andres Montealegre, Don A. Moore, Rafal Muda, Gideon Nave, Austin Lee Nichols, Sarah A. Novak, Christian Nunnally, Ana Orlic, Anna Palinkas, Angelo Panno, Kimberly P. Parks, Ivana Pedovic, Emilian Pekala, Matthew R. Penner, Sebastiaan Pessers, Boban Petrovic, Thomas Pfeiffer, Damian Pienkosz, Emanuele Preti, Danka Puric, Tiago Ramos, Jonathan Ravid, Timothy S. Razza, Katrin Rentzsch, Juliette Richetin, Sean C. Rife, Anna Dalla Rosa, Kaylis Hase Rudy, Janos Salamon, Blair Saunders, Przemyslaw Sawicki, Kathleen Schmidt, Kurt Schuepfer, Thomas Schultze, Stefan Schulz-Hardt, Astrid Schutz, Ani N. Shabazian, Rachel L. Shubella, Adam Siegel, Ruben Silva, Barbara Sioma, Lauren Skorb, Luana Elayne Cunha de Souza, Sara Steegen, L. A. R. Stein, R. Weylin Sternglanz, Darko Stojilovic, Daniel Storage, Gavin Brent Sullivan, Barnabas Szaszi, Peter Szecsi, Orsolya Szoke, Attila Szuts, Manuela Thomae, Natasha D. Tidwell, Carly Tocco, Ann-Kathrin Torka, Francis Tuerlinckx, Wolf Vanpaemel, Leigh Ann Vaughn, Michelangelo Vianello, Domenico Viganola, Maria Vlachou, Ryan J. Walker, Sophia C. Weissgerber, Aaron L. Wichman, Bradford J. Wiggins, Daniel Wolf, Michael J. Wood, David Zealley, Iris Žeželj, Mark Zrubka, and Brian A. Nosek

Individual performance in controlling complex dynamic systems such as managing production in a company or keeping ecosystems in balance is often suboptimal. In this article, we provide the first unequivocal test of whether groups are superior to individuals when controlling dynamic systems. In addition, we test to what extent performance advantages of groups are simply the result of statistically aggregating a larger number of individual opinions and to what extent they represent true synergy attributable to within-group interaction. In 3 experiments, we compared the system control performance of interacting real groups with that of equally sized nominal groups and with individuals. We provide evidence that groups indeed perform better than individuals in dynamic system control tasks. Furthermore, in comparing real groups with nominal groups, we show that, although the majority of real groups' performance advantage stems from statistical aggregation, there is also evidence of true synergy. Finally, we identify the mechanism by which groups achieve synergy, namely group-to-individual transfer. Discussion allows group members to exchange critical information about the system, leading to an improved individual capability to control the system, which, in turn, improves group performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Using an advice-taking paradigm, we investigated how people use information about the wisdom of the crowds when revising their judgments. We focused on two types of information: information about the size of the advisor crowd and information about the distribution of the judgments within the crowd. To test whether judges use these two types of information, we varied the size of the advisor crowd (two, four, or eight advisors) and orthogonally manipulated whether judges received advice in the form of a crowd estimate or in the form of the separate individual judgments. In a third condition, participants received the crowd estimate, but it was labeled as stemming from an individual. We found no evidence that judges used information about the size of the crowd, but they considered information about the distribution of the advice when revising their opinions. Compared with crowd estimates, receiving the individual judgments as advice led to less advice taking but not to substantial differences in post-advice accuracy. Exploratory analyses showed that judges receiving multiple pieces of advice heeded advice less when their initial judgments were closer to the center of the distribution of judgments. In those instances, their initial judgments were also the most accurate, so they stood to gain less from the advice. Receiving multiple pieces of advice also led to smaller confidence gains, suggesting that judges receiving crowd judgments as advice might underestimate the variance of the underlying individual judgments.

As part of the Many Labs 5 project, we ran a replication of van Dijk, van Kleef, Steinel, and van Beest’s (2008) study examining the effect of emotions in negotiations. They reported that when the consequences of rejection were low, subjects offered fewer chips to angry bargaining partners than to happy partners. We ran this replication under three protocols: the protocol used in the Reproducibility Project: Psychology, a revised protocol, and an online protocol. The effect averaged one ninth the size of the originally reported effect and was significant only for the revised protocol. However, the difference between the original and revised protocols was not significant.

Recent research has shown that from early in development, children selectively form new beliefs in response to information supplied by others. However, little is known about the development of selective revision of existing beliefs in response to socially conveyed information. Such selective social belief revison has been extensively studied by social psychologists in the context of advice-taking. Here, we adapted the methods of this research tradition for studying selective advice-taking in young children and adults. Participants solved a perceptual judgment task, received advice, and subsequently made final decisions. The informational access (perceptual quality) of participants and advisor were experimentally manipulated. Adults revised their judgments systematically as a function of both their own and the advisor’s informational access while children based their adjustments only on their own informational access. Two follow-up experiments suggest, however, that this pattern of results in children reflected performance rather than competence limitations: In suitably modified tasks, children did consider both their own information and that of the advisor in their selective social belief revision.

Advice stemming from sources with errors that are dependent on each other is usually less accurate than advice provided by sources with independent errors, while simultaneously exhibiting greater consensus. We investigate whether or not individuals express a preference for advice with dependent errors by choosing it over advice with independent errors and by weighting it more strongly. We test for this preference both in a situation where error interdependence does not negatively affect advice accuracy as well as in a situation where advice with dependent errors is less accurate than advice with independent errors. In a series of six studies, we show that, when being given the opportunity to choose between the two types of advice, participants only prefer advice with dependent errors if this is not detrimental for accuracy. However, when being sequentially provided with both types of advice, they generally weight advice with dependent errors more than advice with independent errors, even if the latter is more accurate. This effect is mainly driven by the fact that advice with dependent errors exhibits greater consensus, leading participants' initial estimates to lie outside the range of the advisors' judgments more frequently. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Advice is a powerful means to improve peoples' judgments and decisions. Because advice quality is rarely apparent, decision-makers must infer it from the characteristics of the advisor or the advice itself. Here, we focus on a largely neglected advice characteristic that should signal quality: advice precision. In a preregistered, high-powered study (N = 195), we tested the effects of advice precision on advice taking. Drawing from past research and theorizing on anchor precision, we derived and tested two competing hypotheses for the relation of advice precision and advice taking—one predicting a monotone increase in advice taking when advice precision increases and the other predicting a backfiring effect of overly precise advice resulting in an inverted U-shape. Our results support the notion of a monotone, albeit not a strong monotone, relationship. Higher perceived advice quality correlated with individuals' advice taking. Consistent with the idea that advice precision serves as a cue for advice quality, the effect of advice precision on advice taking was statistically mediated by perceived advice quality. Although the mediation analysis does not allow for causal interpretation because we did not manipulate the mediating variable, it shows that the effect of advice precision on advice taking is not merely a demand effect. Implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Developmental research, like many fields, is plagued by low sample sizes and inconclusive findings. The problem is amplified by the difficulties associated with recruiting infant participants for research as well as the increased variability in infant responses. With sequential testing designs providing a viable alternative to paradigms facing such issues, the current study implemented a Sequential Bayes Factor (SBF) design on three findings in the developmental literature. In particular, using the framework described by Schonbrodt and colleagues (2017), we examined infants' sensitivity to mispronunciations of familiar words, their learning of novel word-object associations from cross-situational learning paradigms, and their assumption of mutual exclusivity in assigning novel labels to novel objects. We tested an initial sample of 20 participants in each study, incrementally increasing sample size by one and computing a Bayes Factor with each additional participant. In one study, we were able to obtain moderate evidence for the alternate hypotheses despite testing less than half the number of participants as in the original study. We did not replicate the findings of the cross-situational learning study. Indeed, the data were five times more likely under the null hypothesis, allowing us to conclude that infants did not recognize the trained word-object associations presented in the task. We discuss these findings in light of the advantages and disadvantages of using a SBF design in developmental research while also providing researchers with an account of how we implemented this design across multiple studies.

We investigated whether Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) influences social validation as measured by a Judge-Advisor task. In contrast to healthy controls and patients with their DBS OFF, patients with their stimulation switched on do not experience a gain of confidence after receiving competent advice.

One benefit of working in groups is that group members can learn from each other how to perform the task, a phenomenon called group-to-individual transfer (G-I transfer). In the context of quantitative judgments, G-I transfer means that group members improve their individual accuracy as a consequence of exchanging task-relevant information. This improved individual accuracy allows groups to outperform the average of a comparable number of individuals, that is, G-I transfer leads to synergy. While there is mounting evidence that group members benefit from G-I transfer in quantitative judgment tasks, we still know rather little about what exactly group members learn from each other during this transfer. Here, we build on the distinction between metric knowledge (knowing what constitutes a plausible range of values) and mapping knowledge (knowing the relative magnitude of the targets) to gain further insights into the nature of G-I transfer. Whereas previous research found evidence that G-I transfer improves group members' metric knowledge, there is, so far, no evidence that group discussion also improves mapping knowledge. Using a multicue judgment task, we tested whether group members would benefit from G-I-transfer and, if so, whether this G-I transfer would manifest in the form of improved mapping knowledge. The results of two experiments suggest that this is the case. Participants who worked in real interacting groups outperformed participants who worked individually, and this increase in accuracy was accompanied not only by improved metric but also by increased mapping knowledge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Although empirical research has investigated what we ideally seek in a romantic partner for decades, the crucial question of whether ideal partner preferences actually guide our mating decisions in real life has remained largely unanswered. One reason for this is the lack of designs that assess individuals' ideal partner preferences before entering a relationship and then follow up on them over an extended period. In the Göttingen Mate Choice Study (GMCS), a preregistered, large-scale online study, we used such a naturalistic prospective design. We investigated partner preferences across 4 preference domains in a large sample of predominantly heterosexual singles (N = 763, aged 18-40 years) and tracked these individuals across a period of 5 months upon a possible transition into romantic relationships. Attesting to their predictive validity, partner preferences prospectively predicted the characteristics of later partners. This was equally true for both sexes, except for vitality-attractiveness where men's preferences were more predictive of their later partners' standing on this dimension than women's. Self-perceived mate value did not moderate the preference-partner characteristics relations. Preferences proved to be relatively stable across the 5 months interval, yet were less stable for those who entered a relationship. Subgroup analyses using a newly developed indicator of preference adjustment toward (vs. away from) partner characteristics revealed that participants adjusted their preferences downward when partners fell short of initial preferences, but showed no consistent adjustment when partners exceeded them. Results and implications are discussed against the background of ongoing controversies in mate choice and romantic relationship research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

When advice comes from interdependent sources (e.g., from advisors who use the same database), less information should be gained as compared to independent advice. On the other hand, since individuals strive for consistency, they should be more confident in consistent compared to conflicting advice, and interdependent advice should be more consistent than independent advice. In a study investigating the differential effects of interdependent versus independent advice on a judge's accuracy and confidence (Yaniv, Choshen-Hillel, & Milyavsky, 2009), advice interdependence was confounded with another variable, namely closeness of the advice to the judge's estimate. Interdependent advice was not only more consistent than independent advice but also closer to the judge's first estimate. The present study aimed at disentangling the effects of consensus and closeness of the advice by adding a third experimental condition in which interdependent (and, hence, consistent) advice was far from the judge's own estimate. We found that, as suggested by Yaniv et al., accuracy gains were indeed a consequence of advisor interdependence. However, in contrast to Yaniv et al.'s conclusions, confidence in the correctness of one's estimates was mostly a function of the advice's proximity to the participants' initial estimations, thereby indicating a social validation effect. (PsycINFO Database Record

Abstract. Research in the judge-advisor-paradigm suggests that advice is generally utilized less than it should be according to its quality. In a series of four experiments, we challenge this widely held assumption. We hypothesize that when advice quality is low, the opposite phenomenon, namely overutilization of advice, occurs. We further assume that this overutilization effect is the result of anchoring: advice serves as an anchor, thus causing an adjustment toward even useless advice. The data of our four experiments support these hypotheses. Judges systematically adjusted their estimates toward advice that we introduced to them as being useless, and this effect was stable after controlling for intentional utilization of this advice. Furthermore, we demonstrate that anchoring-based adjustment toward advice is independent of advice quality. Our findings enhance our understanding of the processes involved in advice taking and identify a potential threat to judgment accuracy arising from an inability to discount useless advice.

When making judgments and decisions, people suffering from depression are often faced with opinions and advice from others (e.g., from their therapists) but it is unclear how their psychopathology alters the utilization of such information. This study is the first to examine whether depressed people are more or less susceptible to informational social influence. To this end, we employed the Judge–Advisor-System, which allows for a pure test of how people utilize information from others. We found that depressed participants had significantly higher advice taking values than non-depressed participants, which was mediated by self-esteem. A fine-grained analysis of these group differences revealed that depressed participants were more likely to revise their initial estimates after receiving advice than non-depressed people. Yet, once having decided to revise their estimates, depressed people did not weight advice more heavily. Theoretical implications concerning two qualitatively independent effects of depression on advice taking are discussed.

As part of the Many Labs 5 project, we ran a replication of Van Dijk, Van Kleef, Steinel, & Van Beest’s (2008) study “A social functional approach to emotions in bargaining: When communicating anger pays and when it backfires,” which examined the effect of emotions in negotiations. Van Dijk et al. (2008) report that when the consequences of rejection were low, subjects offered fewer chips to angry bargaining partners when compared to happy partners. In the current study, we ran this replication under three protocols: the protocol used in the Replication Project (2015), a revised protocol, and an online protocol.

Replications in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If replications use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replications from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) in which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection and only one of which was “statistically significant” (p < .05). Commenters suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these RP:P studies failed to replicate (Gilbert et al., 2016). We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replications. We administered the RP:P and Revised protocols in multiple laboratories (Median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5; Range 3 to 9; Median total sample = 1279.5; Range 276 to 3512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, Revised protocols produced similar effect sizes as RP:P protocols following the preregistered analysis plan (Δr = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for Revised protocols (r = .05) was similar to RP:P protocols (r = .04) and the original RP:P replications (r = .11), and smaller than the original studies (r = .37). The cumulative evidence of original study and three replication attempts suggests that effect sizes for all 10 (median r = .07; range .00 to .15) are 78% smaller on average than original findings (median r = .37; range .19 to .50), with very precisely estimated effects.

In contrast to the truncated view that replications have only a little to offer beyond what is already known, we suggest a broader understanding of replications: We argue that replications are better conceptualized as a process of conducting consecutive studies that increasingly consider alternative explanations, critical contingencies, and real-world relevance. To reflect this understanding, we collected and summarized the existing literature on replications and combined it into a comprehensive overall typology that simplifies and restructures existing approaches. The resulting typology depicts how multiple, hierarchically structured replication studies guide the integration of laboratory and field research and advance theory. It can be applied to (a) evaluate a theory's current status, (b) guide researchers' decisions, (c) analyze and argue for the necessity of certain types of replication studies, and (d) assess the added value of a replication study at a given state of knowledge. We conclude with practical recommendations for different protagonists in the field (e.g., authors, reviewers, editors, and funding agencies). Together, our comprehensive typology and the related recommendations will contribute to an enhanced replication culture in social psychology and to a stronger real-world impact of the discipline.

A Transparent game is a game-theoretic setting that takes action visibility into account. In each round, depending on the relative timing of their actions, players have a certain probability to see their partner’s choice before making their own decision. This probability is determined by the level of transparency. At the two extremes, a game with zero transparency is equivalent to the classical simultaneous game, and a game with maximal transparency corresponds to a sequential game. Despite the prevalence of intermediate transparency in many everyday interactions such scenarios have not been sufficiently studied. Here we consider a transparent iterated Prisoner’s dilemma (iPD) and use evolutionary simulations to investigate how and why the success of various strategies changes with the level of transparency. We demonstrate that non-zero transparency greatly reduces the set of successful memory-one strategies compared to the simultaneous iPD. For low and moderate transparency the classical “Win – Stay, Lose – Shift” (WSLS) strategy is the only evolutionary successful strategy. For high transparency all strategies are evolutionary unstable in the sense that they can be easily counteracted, and, finally, for maximal transparency a novel “Leader-Follower” strategy outperforms WSLS. Our results provide a partial explanation for the fact that the strategies proposed for the simultaneous iPD are rarely observed in nature, where high levels of transparency are common.

Objectives Although sports team members often value their teams highly, they sometimes make mistakes and thereby unintentionally put their teams at a disadvantage. Thus, they should be motivated to compensate for their mistake to resolve this discrepancy. To test this hypothesis, we studied whether professional soccer players compensate for their own goals by scoring regular goals in the same game (Study 1) and possible processes underlying such compensation efforts (Study 2). Design In Study 1, we compared how frequently prior own goal scorers scored a regular goal in the same game to (a) their expected goal scoring frequencies and (b) their probabilities to score a regular goal following a regular goal by the opposing team. In Study 2, we investigated four possible processes underlying the expected compensatory efforts. Method We analyzed all own goals from the first fifty years of the German Bundesliga (N = 889) and possible ensuing regular goals by the own goal scorer. Moreover, we surveyed amateur soccer players about four motives: group performance, individual performance, individual public image, and group public image. Results Following their own goals, professional soccer players are particularly likely to score regular goals in the same game (i.e., a compensatory own goal effect). Presumably, they primarily do so to secure a good group performance, but the other motives also play a role. Conclusions Group members who make highly visible mistakes are motivated to compensate for the disadvantage they caused. Presumably, they mainly do so to secure a good team performance.

Group interaction can empower groups to outperform even their best members; unfortunately, such strong synergy is rare. The prototypical decision situation where synergy through interaction is possible is called a hidden profile (HP). The two main characteristics of these situations are that (1) each group member has new, unshared information that the other group members do not have, and (2) integrating this unshared information implies a different, better decision alternative than each member’s information alone. The hidden profile coding scheme is designed to code the initially shared and unshared information that is mentioned during the group discussion. The hidden profile coding scheme therefore aims to directly observe group decision processes that potentially lead to synergy.

Real-world agents, such as humans, animals and robots, observe each other during interactions and choose their own actions taking the partners’ ongoing behaviour into account. Yet, classical game theory assumes that players act either strictly sequentially or strictly simultaneously (without knowing the choices of each other). To account for action visibility and provide a more realistic model of interactions under time constraints, we introduce a new game-theoretic setting called transparent game, where each player has a certain probability to observe the choice of the partner before deciding on its own action. Using evolutionary simulations, we demonstrate that even a small probability of seeing the partner’s choice before one’s own decision substantially changes evolutionary successful strategies. Action visibility enhances cooperation in a Bach-or-Stravinsky game, but disrupts cooperation in a more competitive iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. In both games, strategies based on the “Win–stay, lose–shift” and “Tit-for-tat” principles are predominant for moderate transparency, while for high transparency strategies of “Leader-Follower” type emerge. Our results have implications for studies of human and animal social behaviour, especially for the analysis of dyadic and group interactions.

Research on escalation of commitment suggests that decision-makers make use of additional information when confronted with a potentially losing course of action. Veridical information is a helpful tool when deciding whether to continue or de-escalate commitment. However, field data suggests that one primary source of information, namely information provided by experts, is often biased toward the continuation of projects. This bias is partly the result of attempts to influence decision-makers to escalate their commitment. Previous research has, so far, not addressed the question of how decision-makers in an escalation context utilize meta-information that makes them aware of such biases. In three experiments, we show that decision-makers act in accordance with expert advice: they further escalate their commitment when the experts suggest continuation of a failing project, and they de-escalate their commitment when the experts argue in favor of withdrawal (Experiment 1). When participants are made aware of the possibility that the expert advice is biased, the impact of this advice is reduced (Experiment 2). Most importantly, when decision-makers were made aware beyond doubt that the experts aimed to manipulate them, they also relied on the information less, but they failed to fully ignore it (Experiment 3). In sum, our data suggest that decision-makers in an escalation context are prone to attempts at manipulation as they cannot fully ignore biased advice even when the deceptive motive of their advisors is disclosed to them.

Research in the judge-advisor-paradigm suggests that advice is generally utilized less than it should be according to its quality. In a series of four experiments, we challenge this widely held assumption. We hypothesize that when advice quality is low, the opposite phenomenon, namely overutilization of advice, occurs. We further assume that this overutilization effect is the result of anchoring: advice serves as an anchor, thus causing an adjustment toward even useless advice. The data of our four experiments support these hypotheses. Judges systematically adjusted their estimates toward advice that we introduced to them as being useless, and this effect was stable after controlling for intentional utilization of this advice. Furthermore, we demonstrate that anchoring-based adjustment toward advice is independent of advice quality. Our findings enhance our understanding of the processes involved in advice taking and identify a potential threat to judgment accuracy arising from an inability to discount useless advice.

Notwithstanding the appeal of the “one size fits all” approach that Baumeister et al. propose, we argue that there is no panacea for improving group performance. The concept of “differentiation of selves” constitutes an umbrella term for similar seeming but actually different constructs. Even the same type of “differentiation of selves” can be beneficial for some and harmful for other tasks.

Summary People frequently have to work in high repetitive jobs. Previous research has focused exclusively on the effects of task repetitiveness on well-being, while neglecting effects on work performance. In the present study, we aimed to fill this void by conducting two workplace simulations with experimental manipulations of task repetitiveness. Participants worked for about 5hours at either a computer workstation, compiling computer hardware packages according to customer requests (Experiment 1, N=160), or at an assembly line, piecing together equipment sets for furniture (Experiment 2, N=213). Both experiments provide consistent evidence that high repetitiveness has a detrimental effect on well-being, whereas work performance increases under conditions of high repetitiveness. On a practical level, our study hence shows that high task repetitiveness is a double-edged sword for both employees and organizations. On a conceptual level, our findings emphasize the necessity to account for both mental strain and work performance when examining the effects of task repetitiveness. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A growing body of research shows that individual differences in working memory capacity play a pivotal role for a large number of higher order cognitive tasks. Surprisingly, however, the impact of individual differences in working memory capacity on group performance has received little attention. In this conceptual article, we focus on three typical group tasks (group idea generation, group decision making, group judgment) and, for each task, provide an analysis of how individual differences in working memory capacity might affect group performance. Our key idea is that group interaction is a cognitively demanding task as group members have to continuously monitor the ongoing conversation, hold their ideas in memory, integrate the information put forth by others, and update their mental representations accordingly. Therefore, individual differences in working memory capacity are presumed to have a profound impact on how people process information during group interaction.

In this paper, Thomas Schultze-Westrum describes how closely reefs and rainforests are interconnected in the easternmost province of Indonesia, and he suggests that the efforts to sustain their combined unique and incredible biodiversity can only be successful if they involve the local communities. Benefit for the villagers is an essential factor in any such conservation strategy. For the time being, the best approach appears to be ecotourism—as long as it keeps to strict rules and is not consumer-biased. Rather it should comprise lasting beneficial effects for the communities concerned, such as local participation and income, improved living conditions, and social stability, as well as adequate protection of the wildlife species and habitats in the very large village land and sea territories-the forests and the reefs. Schultze-Westrum is the founder of the ECOCULTURE movement that spreads messages about the spiritual perceptions and environmental practices of traditional village peoples and their role in...

One prominent finding in research on group judgment is that groups often outperform the average of their members’ individual judgments. Previous research attributed this finding to groups weighting their more competent members more strongly (differential weighting explanation). We postulate an alternative explanation, namely that groups outperform individuals due to group-to-individual (G–I) transfer, which denotes group members becoming more accurate individually during group interaction. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that individual accuracy in an estimation task strongly increases due to interaction, leading to high accuracy at the group level. Experiment 2 replicates this finding and shows that G–I transfer can be enhanced by expertise feedback. In both experiments, when controlling for G–I transfer during group interaction, group judgments were not better than the average model. The findings imply that previously observed superior performance by groups compared to individuals may have been due to G–I transfer and not necessarily due to differential weighting.

Escalation of commitment denotes decision makers' increased reinvestment of resources in a losing course of action. Despite the relevance of this topic, little is known about how information is processed in escalation situations, that is, whether decision makers who receive negative outcome feedback on their initial decision search for and/or process information biasedly and whether these biases contribute to escalating commitment. Contrary to a widely cited study by E. J. Conlon and J. M. Parks (1987), in 3 experiments, the authors found that biases do not occur on the level of information search. Neither in a direct replication and extension of the original study with largely increased test power (Experiment 1) nor under methodologically improved conditions (Experiments 2 and 3) did decision makers responsible for failure differ from nonresponsible decision makers with regards to information search, and no selective search for information supporting the initial decision or voting for further reinvestment was observed. However, Experiments 3 and 4 show that the evaluation of the previously sought information is biased among participants who were responsible for initiating the course of action. Mediation analyses show that this evaluation bias in favor of reinvestment partially mediated the responsibility effect on escalation of commitment.

A rational strategy to update and revise one’s uncertain beliefs is to take advice by other agents who are better informed. Adults routinely engage in such advice taking in systematic and selective ways depending on relevant characteristics such as reliability of advisors. The current study merged research in social and developmental psychology to examine whether children also adjust their initial judgment to varying degrees depending on the characteristics of their advisors. Participants aged 3 to 6 years played a game in which they made initial judgments, received advice, and subsequently made final judgments. They systematically revised their judgments in light of the advice, and they did so selectively as a function of advisor expertise. They made greater adjustments to their initial judgment when advised by an apparently knowledgeable informant. This suggests that the pattern of advice taking studied in social psychology has its roots in early development.