This report presents three preregistered replication studies on the role of social class in the tendency to align one's product choices with those of others. The original research found that working-class Americans were more likely to conform to the majority's product choice compared to middle-class Americans. These class-based differences in conformity were explained by a more pronounced interdependent self-construal among lower-class compared to higher-class individuals. However, empirical evidence for a negative relationship between social class and an interdependent self-construal is mixed, which also calls into question the robustness of its relationship with conformity. The aim of the present research was to clarify the generalizability and replicability of the role of social class in conformity in product choices, while taking into account the cultural context. Thus, we conducted three preregistered replications of the original experiment, two of them with German samples and one with a U.S. sample (total N = 592). None of the studies were able to replicate the negative relationship between social class and the tendency to adjust one's product choices to the preferences of the majority. The relationship was not significant in the German samples and it even pointed in the opposite direction as expected in the U.S. sample. These results suggest that the generalizability of the relationship between social class and the tendency to follow social preferences is more limited than previously thought. We highlight the importance of conducting conceptual replication studies using different operationalizations of conformity and adopting a cross-cultural perspective on social class.

When examining the influence of income inequality on subjective well-being (SWB), prior research has relied on objective measures of inequality, such as the Gini index. Alternatively, considering the subjective component, research has also investigated how evaluations of inequality, such as perceived (un-)fairness, influence SWB. However, we argue that it is important to also consider the perceived size of inequality independently from evaluations of inequality. Whereas the effect of evaluations of inequality on SWB have been the subject of prior research the effect of perceived size of inequality has received rather little attention. Across three studies, the present research suggests that the higher the perceived size of inequality the lower SWB, independent of evaluations of inequality. Study 1, a country level-analysis across 41 countries found that this relationship is stronger than and independent of objective inequality or unfairness beliefs about inequality and provides longitudinal evidence. Study 2, a representative survey study (N=836), found that the relationship between perceived size of income inequality and SWB is independent of unfairness beliefs about inequality. Study 3, a pre-registered experiment (N=302) manipulated perceived size of income inequality and found partial support for a causal impact on aspects of SWB. Overall, these results emphasize the importance of perceived size of inequality. This perspective holds important implications for explaining how income inequality impacts SWB.

Carbon footprint information via labels has raised interest as a tool to encourage pro-environmental behavior. We propose cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo (Environmental cognitive alternatives; ECAs), the ability to imagine what a sustainable relationship with nature could look like, to improve the effectiveness of carbon labels. Using a discrete choice experiment with intervention and control groups, we investigate the effect of ECAs on low emission labeled, sustainable choices in a grocery shopping context. German participants (N = 150) were randomly assigned to three groups, activating either cognitive alternatives of a positive relationship with nature, or perceived environmental threat (PET), or nothing in a full control group. In the ECAs activation group, participants chose options with lower carbon emissions compared to the other two groups, and had stronger preferences on rating scales for these options. In the PET activation group, participants also had stronger preferences on rating scales than the control group, but this effect was not found for the choice of options. Activating ECAs might be a promising intervention for promoting sustainable choices, and carbon labeling could be helpful when paired with interventions that activate ECAs.

This research demonstrates that the persuasiveness of concrete versus abstract communication in advertisers' promotional messages depends on how (un)certain people feel. Three lab experiments and one study conducted in a natural setting provide converging evidence that uncertainty (versus certainty) increases the appeal of products advertised concretely (i.e. more specific, tangible, less open to interpretation) rather than abstractly, while keeping content similar. We demonstrate the effect across different types of uncertainty, product ads and slogans, three different languages, and a range of products, increasing the external validity of the findings. The results indicate that the effectiveness of concrete communication is critically determined by the level of (un)certainty people experience, which provides important insights for advertisers and communication officers.

For online retailers, increasing click-through rates and reducing dropout rates are critical to success. In this study, we examine the effect of verbatim repetition of the website's headline message on the proceed button, based on research on processing fluency. In our field study involving 956 online platform visitors, we found that verbatim repetitions of the header message on the proceed button resulted in an increase in the conversion rate by more than 10 percentage points compared to gist repetitions and new messages. Our findings highlight the importance of simple verbatim features and demonstrate the successful application of processing fluency research to impact consumer behavior.

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) is the change in liking of an object due to its mere pairing with a positive/negative stimulus. A central question in EC research is whether EC effects also emerge without awareness of the stimulus pairings. This is often tested by asking participants after the conditioning whether an object had been paired with positive or negative stimuli. If participants' answers in these memory measures mismatch with the US valence (e.g., "positive" response when an object was paired with a negative stimulus), the pairings are classified as unaware. The last decade of EC research has found mostly no evidence for unaware EC, and sometimes even reversed unaware EC effects when using such memory measures. The present work demonstrates that such valence memory measures underestimate unaware EC effects due to differences between the normed and the subjective US valence. In two simulation studies, a re-analysis of previous studies, and four preregistered experiments (N = 502), we assess when this bias is more or less severe, depending on common procedural variations in EC experiments. We also propose an improved memory measure of aware/unaware EC. Yet, even when the bias was reduced in the corrected measure, no evidence for unaware EC could be found. Overall, our research shows that unaware EC may be difficult to detect with valence memory measures. Also, they support current memory-based and propositional EC accounts.

Comparing effect sizes between studies is critical for evaluating empirical evidence and gaining a broader understanding of underlying phenomena. However, many effects in psychology are nonlinear, which causes problems for interpreting such comparisons and meta-analyses.

People prefer linguistic stimuli with an inward (e.g. BODIKA) over those with an outward articulation dynamic (e.g. KODIBA), a phenomenon known as the articulatory in-out effect. Despite its robustness across languages and contexts, the phenomenon is still poorly understood. To learn more about the effect's boundary conditions, mental representation, and origin, we crossed the in-out effect with evaluative conditioning research. In five experiments (N = 713, three experiments pre-registered), we systematically paired words containing inward versus outward dynamics with pictures of negative versus positive valence. Although this evaluative conditioning procedure reversed the preference for inward over outward words, this was the case only for words with the same consonant sequences as the conditioned words. For words with inward/outward dynamics but different consonant sequences than the conditioned ones, a regular in-out effect emerged. Also, no preference reversal at all emerged for the conditioned consonant sequences when the contingency between single consonants at specific positions and positive/negative valence was zero. Implications of these findings for the in-out effect and evaluative conditioning are discussed.

When voters in political elections intend to vote for a candidate who represents their political interests, they cannot avoid being influenced by the visual appearance of the candidates. In fact, many political campaigns are dominated by billboard advertising that mainly focuses on politicians' face portraits. While extant research already showed that a candidate's visual appearance has an impact on electoral outcomes, the present research goes a step further and investigates which specific facial features increase or decrease a politician's likelihood of winning an election. Evaluating 17 facial features, we identified mouth width, the ratio of eye height/width, and eyebrow height as relevant predictors of electoral success. In particular, we find across a correlative study, an experimental study, and an analysis of German Federal Elections that a wide mouth and large eyes that extend vertically have a robust and coherent influence on the likelihood of getting votes. Thin eyebrows increase the likelihood of getting votes in our hypothetical voting scenarios but not in the analysis of real election data. Furthermore, we show that the effects of the mouth and the eyes are statistically mediated by perceived trustworthiness and perceived dominance. In terms of real-life relevance, our analysis suggests that these three facial features can make the difference in close races.

The present research contributes to the literature on victim blaming in cases of sexualized violence. Our findings show that even subtle cues, such as positioning in a picture, can influence blame attribution, particularly for people who are motivated to do so. In our experimental study we could show that with increasing rape myth acceptance as well as with increasing benevolent sexism, participants assigned more responsibility for later occurring sexualized violence to a woman displayed on the left-hand side compared to a woman displayed on the right-hand side of a picture.

Brand placements are omnipresent in video games, but their overall effect on brand attitudes is small and varies substantially between studies. The present research takes an evaluative conditioning perspective to explain when and how brand placements in video games influence brand attitudes. In two experiments with a 3D first-person video game, we show that only brands encountered during positive in-game experiences benefit from the placement, but not those encountered during negative in-game experiences. Building on the cognitive processes underlying evaluative conditioning, we also show that brand attitudes largely depend on the memory for the pairing of a brand with positive/negative in-game experiences. Pairing memory and thus also evaluative conditioning effects increase when players attend to the pairing of brands and positive/negative experiences, for example, when such pairings are a central part of the game's storyline. Overall, our findings show that evaluative conditioning and its cognitive mechanisms can be utilized to explain and predict advertising effects in applied settings, such as brand placements in video games.

People prefer linguistic stimuli with an inward-wandering consonant sequence (e.g., PATIKO) over those with an outward-wandering consonant sequence (e.g., KATIPO), a preference referred to as articulatory in-out effect. Previous research has proposed that this effect is based on a higher fluency of inward versus outward articulation. Recently, however, several keystones of this articulation fluency account have been called into question. In the present research, we provide a straightforward test for this account by extending the traditional in-out effect research design to include other sequences as well. This allowed comparing liking and articulation fluency judgments over a range of stimuli beyond merely inward vs. outward stimuli. The results of two highly powered experiments (N = 531, one preregistered) show that even though inward stimuli are more fluent and better liked than outward stimuli, over all stimulus types articulation fluency and liking judgments diverge. These findings imply that articulation fluency alone cannot account for differences in liking such as the in-out effect. We discuss further directions for future in-out effect research.

Default nudges successfully guide choices across multiple domains. Online use cases for defaults range from promoting sustainable purchases to inducing acceptance of behavior tracking scripts, or “cookies.” However, many scholars view defaults as unethical due to the covert ways in which they influence behavior. Hence, opt-outs and other digital decision aids are progressively being regulated in an attempt to make them more transparent. The current practice of transparency boils down to saturating the decision environment with convoluted legal information. This approach might be informed by researchers, who hypothesized that nudges could become less effective once they are clearly laid out: People can retaliate against influence attempts if they are aware of them. A recent line of research has shown that such concerns are unfounded when the default-setters proactively discloses the purpose of the intervention. Yet, it remained unclear whether the effect persists when defaults reflect the current practice of such mandated transparency boils down to the inclusion of information disclosures, containing convoluted legal information. In two empirical studies (N= 364), respondents clearly differentiated proactive from mandated transparency. Moreover, they choose the default option significantly more often when the transparency disclosure was voluntary, rather than mandated. Policy implications and future research directions are discussed.

The mental imagination of (social) actions has been shown to follow a left-to-right trajectory, with the thematic agent associated with the left position (Spatial Agency Bias, Suitner & Maass, 2016). For example, individuals asked to choose a picture that visualizes the sentence “Tom kicks George.” tend to choose an image where the agent, Tom, is positioned on the left-hand side rather than on the righthand side. However, alternative to the thematic role of the agent, such findings may reflect a mental representation following pragmatic relevance. Specifically, a pragmatic perspective holds that word order and syntactic functions are strategic devices to communicate that the element is important for the sentence. Thus, positioning in the described picture-matching task may actually reflect the agent’s pragmatic relevance instead of agency per se. For a test, we vary whether sentences are written in active versus passive voice. Results from five studies indicate that passive voice results in the tendency to place the agent on the right-hand side rather than on the left-hand side of a picture. Instead, the acted-upon person is positioned on the left-hand side of a picture. A sixth experiment reveals that for passive voice, the agent is still seen as more agentic than the receiver, but is considered less relevant. The findings are congruent with the proposed pragmatic relevance account. Implications for the Spatial Agency Bias as well as for building mental representations in general are discussed. A cc ep te d A rt ic le

The articulatory in-out effect describes the preference for words with articulation moving inward compared to words with articulation moving outward. A promising explanation is that inward words are more fluent than outward words, but experimental evidence for such reasoning was offered only recently: By training selectively inward or outward words, fluency and consequentially liking was altered, leading to reversed or attenuated in-out effects when outward words were trained. However, it remains unclear whether such training procedures actually impact fluency of inward/outward movements, or whether they solely change the fluency of trained grammars. In two experiments (one preregistered, total N = 501), we show that training inward/outward words increases fluency and liking for trained grammar, but these effects do not generalize to in-out movements. The results show that training effects on liking reflect a structural mere-exposure effect rather than a change in liking for in-out motor movements. Findings are discussed regarding their implications for the fluency account, and the mental representation of inward and outward words.

Individual, car-based mobility contributes significantly to worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Driving style accounts for up to 30% of fuel consumption and manufacturers have implemented technologies such as energy-efficient "eco" driving modes to reduce emissions. Here we report evidence from a field experiment with battery-electric vehicles. Two behavioral interventions, changing the mode's default to on and informing drivers about the frequency of other people's usage of the mode, i.e. providing a descriptive social norm, successfully increased eco mode usage. However, the cars' acceleration and energy consumption remained unaffected due to a behavioral rebound, and were instead predicted by a situational factor, trip distance. While behavioral interventions proved effective, the results suggest that technological interventions aiming to reduce the environmental impacts might focus more strongly on alterations of situational rather than dispositional factors of people or cars.

The eminent role of processing fluency in judgment and decision-making is undisputed. Not only is fluency affected by sources as diverse as stimulus repetition or visual clarity, but it also has an impact on outcomes as diverse as liking for a stimulus or the subjective validity of a statement. Although several studies indicate that sources and outcomes are widely interchangeable, recent research suggests that judgments are differentially affected by conceptual and perceptual fluency, with stronger effects of conceptual (vs. perceptual) fluency on judgments of truth. Here, we propose a fluency-specificity hypothesis according to which conceptual fluency is more informative for content-related judgments, but perceptual fluency is more informative for judgments related to perception. Two experimental studies in which perceptual and conceptual fluency were manipulated orthogonally show the superiority of content repetition on judgments of truth but the superiority of visual contrast on aesthetic evaluations. The theoretical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The self-sufficiency hypothesis suggests that priming individuals with money makes them focus more strongly on themselves than on others. However, recently, research supporting this claim has been heavily criticized and some attempts to replicate have failed. A reason for the inconsistent findings in the field may lay in the common use of explicit measures, because they tend to rely on one or just a few items and are thus prone to demand effects and tow reliability. In the present research, we administered, in two experiments, the imitation-inhibition task - a robust, unobtrusive, and reliable paradigm that is sensitive to self-other focus on a trial-by-trial basis. A pilot study found an increased focus on the self as compared to others when primed with money. Building on this finding, a preregistered high-powered experiment replicated this effect, suggesting that money primes may indeed increase a focus on the self. An additionally carried out meta-analysis indicates that automatic imitation is modulated by self-other focus and that money primes lead to a smaller focus on the self than conventional methods. Overall, the found effects are rather small and several limitations, such as order effects, call for a cautious interpretation of the findings.

The self-sufficiency hypothesis suggests that priming individuals with money makes them focus more strongly on themselves than on others. However, recently, research supporting this claim has been heavily criticized and some attempts to replicate have failed. A reason for the inconsistent findings in the field may lay in the common use of explicit measures, because they tend to rely on one or just a few items and are thus prone to demand effects and low reliability. In the present research, we administered, in two experiments, the imitation-inhibition task—a robust, unobtrusive and reliable paradigm that is sensitive to self-other focus on a trial-by-trial basis. A pilot study found an increased focus on the self as compared to others when primed with money. Building on this finding, a preregistered high-powered experiment replicated this effect, suggesting that money primes may indeed increase a focus on the self. An additionally carried out meta-analysis indicates that automatic imitation is modulated by self-other focus and that money primes lead to a smaller focus on the self than conventional methods. Overall the found effects are rather small and several limitations, such as order effects, call for a cautious interpretation of the findings.

Default options have been successfully utilized in influencing behavior across multiple domains. Recent empirical evidence advocated the induction of transparency to default interventions as an effective tool for increasing policy compliance. However, the roles of the different transparency components in achieving the effect remain unexplored. In an experimental study, we measured the effects of three different transparency disclosures on default effectiveness. The default?s target behavior, the default?s purpose, and the way defaults work were disclosed in separate conditions. Our results show that transparency significantly increases compliance to the default nudge. In addition, we provide an insight as to which transparency components are most effective in boosting the default effect.