The mentoring group is created to provide PhD students working on experimental research (broadly speaking) a space to connect, advance their research agenda and both give and receive feedback on their ongoing work. We meet on Mondays, from 2 pm to 3 pm at the AQUARIUM 0345140 (Floor: E03).
This term (October - November 2023) we have an exciting line-up of PhD candidates presenting their work. You can see the program below or download it here
Interface design can be strategically employed to `nudge' consumers to take certain actions and is suspected of promoting addictive online behavior. A prevalent interface element across numerous popular social media and streaming platforms is the default autoplay feature. In this study, we present an incentivized online experiment to investigate whether the autoplay feature alone can cause an unwarranted increase in desired viewing times. While controlling for content, we demonstrate that the autoplay feature, in isolation, does not override participants’ previously indicated preferences for media consumption. We discuss the our findings in terms of what actually renders online platforms addictive. Our results have direct policy implications for the proposed blanket ban on autoplay by the US Congress (SMART Act).
Decisions are often based on the emotion one anticipates it will produce. We want to make choices that will lead to a happy life. This process is known as affective forecasting and has been shown to be important to patient’s medical decision-making. Recent research calls for further investigations into the processes of affective forecasting with medical and bivalent outcomes (bivalent referring to outcomes which produce mixed feelings). To this end we are observing participants neural activity during a cue exposure task in which participants must anticipate their emotions to a series of hypothetical bivalent medical outcomes.
Dual Identity, the simultaneous acknowledgement and promotion of two (or more) distinct identities, is promoted as an efficient facilitator of social change. In an attempt to boost the creativity and productivity provided by diverse workforces, while eliminating discrimination and unethical behaviour, this experiment sets out to investigate boundary conditions of the formation of Dual Identity and its efficacy when facing different degrees of diversity. Conducing an online, lab in the field experiment with students of different study programs, but the same university, we induce a Dual Identity that promotes both of these group memberships. Using pre- and post-intervention measures by means of experimental games (Public Goods Game, Taking Dictator Game) we assess how team diversity affects Dual Identity formation and subsequent consequences, that is, team cooperation, discrimination and counterproductive work behaviour (CWB).
Financial incentives are among the most popular policy interventions used to encourage socially desirable behavior. However, numerous studies have shown that they can backfire. Theoretical and behavioral evidence suggest that monetary incentives backfire when they undermine social incentives, but there is no consensus on when this is more likely to occur. In this paper, we aim to examine the direct impact of financial incentives on the social incentives associated with taking a COVID-19 vaccine, using theoretical analysis and an online experiment. We study this relationship in two distinct environments: high and low compliance rates; and across five possible incentive schemes: large and small monetary incentives, penalties and rewards, and no incentives.