The influence of comparison processes on movement and effector compatibility effects

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Oliver Genschow
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 246329797

Comparative processes are a fundamental element of human cognition and their importance for perception and social judgments is well known. However, past research has largely neglected the role of comparison processes in social interactions. We propose to fill this gap by testing the influence of comparison processes on how individuals map their own actions onto others. Specifically, we will test the prediction that focusing on similarities, as compared to dissimilarities, increases effects of movement and effector compatibility.Past research has shown that observing another person performing an action facilitates the execution of that action. By using stimulus-response congruency tasks, cognitive psychologists test the mechanisms of such phenomena by investigating two important underlying components-that is movement and effector compatibility. Research has found that such compatibility effects are reduced when individuals are faced with out-group members, non-human agents, when they are in a competitive mode as compared to a cooperative mode, or when they observe actions from a third-person perspective as compared to a first-person perspective. As several of these variables also affect the outcomes of social comparisons, we propose that merely focusing on similarities between oneself and another person increases effects of movement and effector compatibility. The project proposal is based on four conducted pilot studies indicating that focusing on similarities, as compared to dissimilarities, indeed increases movement and effector compatibility effects. Interestingly, the fourth pilot study indicates that merely highlighting another person's effector by the means of increased brightness of that effector is sufficient to evoke this effect. In the present research proposal, we aim at extending this initial work by rigorously investigating the underlying mechanisms as well as possible alternative explanations. The project is divided into three Work Packages (WPs). By testing potential alternative explanations, in WP1, we will test whether merely guiding participants' attention to an effector by the means of increasing the effector's brightness is indeed sufficient to account for the effect. While WP1 will investigate the processes within movement and effector compatibility effects, WP2 will test mechanisms within comparison processes, and WP3 will test the generalizability of our findings to the emotional domain.Investigating the influence of social comparisons on movement and effector compatibility effects may allow to uncover a causal process that can potentially elucidate the open question of how comparison processes are linked to actual social interactions. Furthermore, the project will offer a new perspective on the process of movement and effector compatibility by putting forward a model that allows integrating different moderators into a common framework.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2150: Relativity in Social Cognition: Antecedents and Consequences of Comparative Thinking
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Jan Crusius