Research
Our research focuses on the investigation of cognitive processes that underlie social phenomena. Key areas are described below.
Perception of social variability
In our research, we investigate the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the perception of people's differences, for example in their income, performance or attractiveness.
Publications:
Ebert, J., & Deutsch, R. (2024). When the ends justify the mean - The Endpoint Leverage Effect in distribution perception. Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13455
Deutsch, R., Ebert, J., Barth, M., & Roth, J. (2023). Biased perception of distributions: Anchoring, interpolation and smoothing as potential causes. Cognition, 237, 105448.
Rinn, R., Krishna, A., & Deutsch, R. (2023). The psychology of income wealth threshold estimations: A registered report. British Journal of Social Psychology, 62(1), 630-650.
Perception of discrimination
Using the SUSED paradigm we developed, we explore how statistical information and schematic influences shape the perception of discrimination.
Publications:
Heineck, P. M., & Deutsch, R. (2024). Beyond the incident: Influences on the perception of multiple instances of discrimination. British Journal of Social Psychology. 00, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12762
Heineck, P. M., & Deutsch, R. (2024). Summarized and sequential discrimination-A paradigm for research on the perception of multiple instances of discrimination. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 110, 104548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104548
Construction of stereotypes
In our research, we investigate how learning processes can lead to polarised judgements and overgeneralised statements about social groups.
Publications:
Rothermund, P., & Deutsch, R. (2024). Exaggerating differences back and forth: Two levels of intergroup accentuation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12699
Moral judgment
In our work, we investigate cognitive processes in moral judgement. In particular, we focus on the cognitive consequences of repeated stimulus presentation, as well as social influences and dilemma judgements.
Publications:
Hennig, M., & Hütter, M. (2020). Revisiting the divide between deontology and utilitarianism in moral dilemma judgment: A multinomial modeling approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(1), 22.
Körner, A., Deutsch, R., & Gawronski, B. (2020). Using the CNI model to investigate individual differences in moral dilemma judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46, 1392-1407.
Körner, A., Joffe, S., & Deutsch, R. (2019). When skeptical, stick with the norm: Low dilemma plausibility increases deontological moral judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 84.
Development of social psychological methods
We are working in various areas to develop or improve methods for analysing social psychological phenomena or theories. Examples include the development of a standardised paradigm for investigating the perception of discrimination or the development and evaluation of realistic moral dilemmas.
Publications:
Heineck, P. M., & Deutsch, R. (2024). Summarized and sequential discrimination-A paradigm for research on the perception of multiple instances of discrimination. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 110, 104548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104548
Körner, A., & Deutsch, R. (2023). Deontology and utilitarianism in real life: A set of moral dilemmas based on historic events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(10), 1511–1528.
