Charitable requests often ask many potential donors to give to a specific donation cause. However, the presence of other donors can lead to social comparisons among donors and influence their self-perception. We systematically investigated the role of attention in these comparisons using a joint-donation task. Participants were presented with asymmetric joint-giving scenarios, in which two...
Intergroup empathy bias (IEB) is a tendency to empathise more with ingroup than with outgroup members. Substantial evidence for the phenomenon comes from neuroscientific studies of empathy for physical pain. These studies typically investigate racial groups and register bias in neural but often not in behavioural indicators of empathy; the discrepancy is routinely ascribed to social...
Previous research from the United States indicates that voting for a losing candidate in presidential elections is associated with feelings of exclusion and social pain, similar to reactions in interpersonal exclusion. Our research replicates these findings in real election in a European country (Austria), demonstrating their relevance in a different political system. Experimental evidence...
Based on the multidimensional existential threat model, present perceived threats, such as the Ukraine crisis and EU sanctions, and past victimization can be considered as types of collective threat. Under high system threats, people are motivated to adhere to the status quo, resulting in the legitimization of the system. We assumed that the perceived threats of the Ukraine crisis and EU...
