
Welcome to the Social Cognition Center Cologne
Nine Research Groups study a broad array of topics in Social Cognition.


SoCCCo Events

SoCCCo Projects
The Social Cognition Center Cologne (SoCCCo) provides a dynamic research environment for the psychological study of human social behavior with an emphasis on underlying social cognitive processes. Ten research groups study a broad array of topics in social cognition, ranging from the dynamics of self-control to the ubiquity of social comparison and the intricacies of processing valenced information. SoCCCo aims to conduct high-quality research, and provide a dynamic and inspiring research environment for all researchers regardless of seniority, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, or disabilities. For more information on our ideals, click here.
SoCCCo PIs | Jan Crusius • Simone Dohle • Anne Gast • Oliver Genschow • Andreas Glöckner • Roland Imhoff • Joris Lammers • Iris Schneider • Christian Unkelbach
Most Recent SoCCCo Publications
- Genschow, O., & Vehlow (2021). Free to blame? Belief in free will is related to victim blamin. Conscioussnes and Cognition, 88, 103074.
- Dorrough, A. R., Leszczyńska, M., Werner*, S., Schaeffer*, L., Simandi*, F., Galley*, A.-S., Akin*, E., Bachmann*, J., Bruske*, M., & Burghardt*, U. (in press). Equal performance, different grade: Women’s performance in discussion perceived worse than men’s. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. *The 3rd-10th author were students under the supervision of the first author.
- Fleischmann, A., Lammers, J., Diel, K., Hofmann, W., & Galinsky, A. D. (in press). More threatening and more diagnostic: How moral comparisons differ from social comparisons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Dohle*, S., Wingen*, T., & Schreiber, M. (2020). Acceptance and adoption of protective measures during the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of trust in politics and trust in science. Social Psychological Bulletin, 15(4), e4315
*shared first authorship
- Diel, K., Grelle, S., & Hofmann, W. (in press). A motivational framework of social comparison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Weiss, A., Michels, C., Burgmer, P., Mussweiler, T., Ockenfels, A., & Hofmann, W. (2020). Trust in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Froehlich, L., Dorrough, A. R., Glöckner, A. & Stürmer, S. (2021). Similarity predicts cross-national social preferences. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
- Dorrough, A. R., & Glöckner, A. (2020). Sex differences concerning prosocial behavior in social dilemmas are (partially) mediated by risk preferences but not social preferences. An in-depth analysis across 10 countries. Social Psychology.
- Dohle, S., Duncan, M. J., & Bucher, T. (in press). Development and validation of the Diet-related Beliefs of Exercisers Scale (DBES). Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology.
- Fleischmann, A. & Van Berkel, L. (in press). Gender disparities in middle authorship. Social Psychological Bulletin.
- Moran, T., Hughes, S. J., Hussey, I., Vadillo, M., Olson, M., Aust, F., Bading K., Balas, R., Benedict, T., Corneille, O., Douglas, S. B., Ferguson, M. J., Fritzlen, K. A., Gast, A., Gawronski, B., Giménez-Fernández, T., Hanusz, K., Heycke, T., Högden, F., Hütter, M., Kurdi, B., Mierop, A., Richter, J., Sarzyńska-Wawer, J., Smith, C. T., Stahl, C., Thomasius, P., Unkelbach, C., & De Houwer, J. (in press). Incidental attitude formation via the surveillance task: A registered replication report of Olson and Fazio (2001). Psychological Science.
- Genschow, O., Westfal, M., Crusius, J., Bartosch, L., Feikes, K. I., Pallasch, N., & Wozniak, M. (in press). Does social psychology persist over half a century? A direct replication of Cialdini et al.’s (1975) classic door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Dorrough, A. R., Olsson, M. I. T., Fröhlich, L., Glöckner, A., & Martiny, S. E. (2020). Does she compensate the victim while he punishes the perpetrator? No gender differences in anonymous economic games across 11 nations. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.
- Fröhlich, L., Olsson, M. I. T., Dorrough, A. R., & Martiny, S. E. (2020). Gender at work across nations: Men and women working in male‐dominated and female‐dominated occupations are differentially associated with agency and communion. Journal of Social Issues.
- Funk, F.* & Mischkowski, D.* (in principal acceptance). Examining consequentialist punishment motives in one-shot social dilemmas. Zeitschrift für Psychologie. *shared first authorship
- Crusius, J., Thierhoff, J., & Lange, J. (2021). Dispositional greed predicts benign and malicious envy. Personality and Individual Differences.
- Crusius, J., & Lange, J. (in press). Counterfactual thoughts distinguish benign and malicious envy. Emotion.
- Fleischmann, A., Lammers, J., Conway, P., & Galinsky, A.D. (in press). Kant be compared: People high in social comparison orientation make fewer—not more—deontological decisions in sacrificial dilemmas. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
- Wingen, T., Englich, B., Estal Muñoz, V., Mareva, S., & Kassianos, A. P. (2020). Exploring the relationship between social class and quality of life: The mediating role of power and status. Applied Research in Quality of Life.
- Hofmann, W., Dohle, S., & Diel, K. (2020). Changing behavior using integrated self-control theory. In M. S. Hagger, L. D. Cameron, K. Hamilton, N. Hankonen, & T. Lintunen (Eds.), The handbook of behavior change (pp. 150-163). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Bucher, T., Frey, E., Wilczynska, M., Deroover, K., & Dohle, S. (2020). Consumer perception and behaviour related to low-alcohol wine: Do people overcompensate? Public Health Nutrition, 23(11), 1939-1947.
- Hahn, A., & Goedderz, A. (in press). Trait-unconsciousness, state-unconsciousness, preconsciousness, and social miscalibration in the context of implicit evaluations. Social Cognition.
- Lammers, J., Crusius, J., & Gast, A. (2020). Correcting misperceptions of exponential coronavirus growth increases support for social distancing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 202006048.
- Schreiber, M., Job, V., & Dohle, S. (in press). Is your health malleable or fixed? The influence of implicit theories on health-related attitudes and behaviour. Psychology & Health.
- Amit, E., Han, E. Posten, A.-C., & Sloman, S. (in press). How people judge institutional corruption. Connecticut Law Review.
- Posten, A.-C., & Kitzig, C. (in press). Strategische Merkmalsnutzung zur Erkennung und Tarnung von Lügen aus der Perspektive von Laien [Strategic cue application to detect and disguise lies from lay people’s perspective]. Praxis der Rechtspsychologie.
- Schreiber, M., Bucher, T., Collins, C., & Dohle, S. (2020). The Multiple Food Test: Development and validation of a new tool to measure food choices and applied nutrition knowledge, Appetite, 150, 104647.
- Alves, H. Högden, F., Gast, A., Aust, F., & Unkelbach, C. (2020). Attitudes from mere co-occurrences are guided by differentiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Genschow, O., & Alves H. (2020). The submissive chameleon: Third-party inferences from observing mimicry. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
- Genschow, O., Hawickhorst, E., Rigoni, D., Aschermann, E. & Brass, M. (2020). Professional judges’ disbelief in free will and punishment. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
- Hütter, M., & Genschow, O. (2020). What is learned in approach-avoidance tasks? On the scope and generalizability of approach-avoidance effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
- Goedderz, A. & Hahn, A. (2020). Haben wir alle versteckte Vorurteile? Implizite Einstellungen und ihre Bedeutung in der Gesellschaft [Do we all have hidden prejudices? Implicit attitudes and their relevance in society]. In-Mind Magazin, 1/2020.
- Kranz, D. & Goedderz, A. (2020). Coming home from a stay abroad: Associations between young people’s reentry problems and their cultural identity formation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 74, 115–126.
- Righetti, F., Schneider, I. K., Ferrier, D., Spiridonova, T., Xiang, R., & Impett, E. A. (2020). The bittersweet taste of sacrifice: Consequences for ambivalence and mixed reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
- Van Dessel, P., De Houwer, J., Gast, A., Roets, A., & Smith, C. T. (in press). On the effectiveness of approach-avoidance instructions and training for changing evaluations of social groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Koch, A., Speckmann, F., & Unkelbach, C. (in press). Q-SpAM: How to efficiently measure similarity in online research. Sociological Methods and Research.
- Ruszpel, B., & Gast, A. (in press). Memory and preparedness in evaluative conditioning in a smell-taste paradigm. A registered report. Cognition and Emotion.
- Schneider, I. K., Stapels, J., Koole, S. L., & Schwarz, N. (2020). Too close to call: Spatial distance between options influences choice difficulty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 87, 103939.
- Phills, C. E.*, Hahn, A.*, & Gawronski, B. (2020). The bidirectional causal relationship between implicit stereotypes and prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. *equal contribution
- Lange, J., Dalege, J., Borsboom, D., Van Kleef, G. A., & Fischer, A. H. (in press). Toward an integrative psychometric model of emotions. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
- Wingen, T., Berkessel, J., & Englich, B. (2020). No replication, no trust? How low replicability influences trust in psychology. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
- Schneider, I. K., Gillebaart, M., & Mattes, A. (2020). Meta-analytic evidence for ambivalence resolution as a key process in effortless self-control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
- Gast, A., Richter, J., & Ruszpel, B. (2020). Is there evidence for unaware evaluative conditioning in a valence contingency learning task? Cognition and Emotion.
- Ecker, Y., & Bar-Anan, Y. (in press). Sensory preconditioning of evaluation requires accurate memory of the co-occurrence between the neutral stimuli. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
- Crusius, J.*, Gonzalez, M. F.*, Lange, J.*, & Cohen-Charash, Y.* (2020). Envy: An adversarial review and comparison of two competing views. Emotion Review. *equal contribution
- Benedict, T., & Gast, A. (in press). Evaluative conditioning with fear- and disgust-evoking stimuli: No evidence that they increase learning without explicit memory. Cognition and Emotion.
- Gerten, J., & Topolinski, S. (in press). Shades of surprise: Assessing surprise as a function of degree of deviance and expectation constraints. Cognition.
- Fleischmann, A., & Burgmer, P. (2020). Abstract thinking increases support for affirmative action. Sex Roles.
- Fleischmann, A., & Lammers, J. (2020). Power and moral thinking. Current Opinion in Psychology.
- Ecker, Y., & Bar-Anan, Y. (in press). The misattributing personality: The relationship between priming in the affect misattribution procedure, need for closure and body awareness. Social Cognition.
- Ruessmann, J. K., & Topolinski, S. (in press). Economic decisions for others are more favorable for close than distant clients. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
- De keersmaecker, J., Dunning, D. A., Pennycook, G., Rand, D. G., Sanchez, C., Unkelbach, C., & Roets, A. (2020). Investigating the robustness of the illusory truth effect across individual differences in cognitive ability, need for cognitive closure, and cognitive style [preprint]. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
- Sieverding, M., Ungar, N., Fleischmann, A., Lee, M., Zhang, H., Mohnke, M., … Weidner, G. (2020). Prevalence and frequency of self-management strategies among female cancer survivors: The neglected roles of social relations and conscious living. Supportive Care in Cancer.
- Van Dessel, P., Cone, J., Gast, A., & De Houwer, J. (in press). The impact of valenced verbal information on implicit and explicit evaluation: The role of information diagnosticity, primacy, and memory cueing. Cognition and Emotion.
- Diel, K., & Hofmann, W. (in press). Inspired to perspire: The predicted interplay of social comparison direction and standard extremity in the context of challenging exercising goals. Social Cognition.
- Jekel, M. (in press). Empirical content as a criterion for evaluating models. Cognitive Processing.
- Högden, F., Stahl, C., & Unkelbach, C. (in press). Similarity-based and rule-based generalization in the acquisition of attitudes via evaluative conditioning. Cognition & Emotion.
- Nett, T., Dorrough, A. R., Jekel, M., & Glöckner, A. (2020). Perceived biological and social characteristics of a representative set of German first names. Social Psychology. [data and materials on OSF]
SoCCCo in the Media
Dec 9, 2020 | wissenschaftskommunikation.de
Die Wissenschaftskommunikation braucht einen Ehrenkodex [Science communication needs an honor code]. Op-ed by Laura König and Jan Crusius
Dec 3, 2020 | University of Cologne
University of Cologne Teaching Award awarded to Jan Crusius, Anne Gast, and Fabia Högden
Jul - Aug, 2020 Le Temps | Forbes | Le Monde | WZ | Psychology Today | Scientific American | WirtschaftsWoche | The Hill | BBC News | Corriere della Sera | News coverage of Correcting misperceptions of exponential coronavirus growth increases support for social distancing by Joris Lammers, Jan Crusius, and Anne Gast
Jul 27, 2020 | WDR 5 (Sendung „Neugier genügt“)
Wieso fällt Fleischverzicht oft schwer? [Why is it often hard to abstain from consuming meat?] | Radio interview with Simone Dohle
Jul 23, 2020 | KÖLNER STADTANZEIGER
Trotz Tönnies-Skandal - Warum es vielen so schwer fällt, kein Fleisch zu essen [Despite the Tönnies scandal - Why many people find it difficult to abstain from consuming meat] | Interview with Simone Dohle | By Elisa Sobkowiak
Jul 13, 2020 | UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN
Fleischverzicht ist keine Alles-oder-Nichts-Entscheidung, sondern ein Prozess [Abstaining from meat is no all-or-nothing decision, it is a process] | Simone Dohle on meat consumption
Jun 25, 2020 | Perspective Daily
Wir alle empfinden Neid. Ist das so schlimm? [We all feel envy. Is that so bad?] | Article about research by Jan Crusius | by Lara Malberger
May 25, 2020 | RTL aktuell
Forschungsprojekt zur Unterstützung im Umgang mit den psychologischen Belastungen durch COVID-19 [Research project to support coping with COVID-19 stress] | News coverage of research by Andreas Glöckner
May 19, 2020 | WDR
Warum wir wütend werden, wenn andere die Regeln brechen [Why we get angry when others break the rules] | Interview with Andreas Glöckner on social distancing norms by Anastasiya Polubotko
May 11, 2020 | Radio Eins
Die neue Sorglosigkeit [The new nonchalance] | Interview with Andreas Glöckner on Corona risk fatigue
May 11, 2020 | rtl.de | ntv.de | stern.de
Persönlichkeitstest zum Coronavirus: Welcher „Corona-Typ“ sind Sie [Personality test about Coronavirus: Which "Corona type" are you?] | rtl.de | ntv.de | stern.de | News coverage of a research project of Andreas Glöckner
May 08, 2020 | FORUM - Das Wochenmagazin
Ist doch alles gut gegangen – bisher [But all went well - so far] | Interview with Andreas Glöckner on Corona risk fatigue | By Volker Thomas
Apr 24, 2020 | dpa
Vom Ermüden der Risikowahrnehmung [On fatigue of risk perception] | Andreas Glöckner on Coronavirus risk perception and trust in science | published in e.g. Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stern, Die Zeit, MSN, Augsburger Allgemeine
Apr 22, 2020 | University of Cologne
Isoliert, aber nicht allein. Ein Gespräch über die besondere Verbundenheit in digitalen Netzen [Isolated but not alone: A conversation about the social connections in social networks] | Interview with Jan Crusius by Frieda Berg
Mar 23, 2020 | In-Mind Magazin
Coronavirus: Warum die Dynamik der Ansteckungsgefahr so schwer zu begreifen ist [Corona virus: Why the dynamic growth of the Corona virus is hard to grasp] | By Jan Crusius
Mar 19, 2020 | In-Mind Magazin
Corona-Krise: Warum tätigen Menschen Hamsterkäufe? [Corona crisis: Why do people engage in panic-buying and hoarding?] | By Oliver Genschow
Feb 19, 2020 | Wissenschaftskommunikation.de
Trau keiner Studie, die du nicht selbst repliziert hast? [Don't trust any study you didn't replicate yourself?] | Invited guest article on the link between replicability and trust in science | By Tobias Wingen and Jana Berkessel
November 11, 2019 | Junior Researcher Programme News
How does the replication crisis affect public trust in psychology? | Blog post covering a publication by Tobias Wingen, Jana Berkessel, & Birte Englich | By Junior Researcher Programme
October 31, 2019 | BPS Research Digest
The replication crisis lowers public’s trust in psychology. But can that trust be build back up? Blog post covering a publication by Tobias Wingen, Jana Berkessel, & Birte Englich | By Matthew Warren
Aug 31, 2019 | Forschung & Lehre
Neid an Hochschulen - Neid tut weh, motiviert aber auch [Envy in academia - It's painful, but can motivate] | By Katja Corcoran & Jan Crusius
May 8, 2019 | wissenschaftskommunikation.de
„Es gibt oft keine einfachen Antworten“ [Often, there are no easy answers] | Interview with Oliver Genschow and Jan Crusius about the science communication project In-Mind Magazine | By Joachim Retzbach
Apr 17, 2019 | SPSP's Character & Context
Does power corrupt? How powerful people react in moral dilemmas | Blog post covering a publication by Alexandra Fleischmann, Joris Lammers, Paul Conway, and Adam D. Galinsky | By Alexandra Fleischmann
Mar 6, 2019 | LTO
Geschlechtergerechtigkeit in der Justiz: Berlin will mehr Frauen in Prüfungskommissionen [Gender equality in the judiciary: Berlin calls for more female examiners in law state exams] | A study by Towfigh, Traxler, & Glöckner influences politics
Dec 30, 2018 | BR
Intuition: Wegweiser in einer komplexen Welt [Intuition: Guidance in a complex world] | A radio contribution on intuition by Andreas Glöckner and others | By Rita Homefeldt
Oct 10, 2018 | FAZ
Politiker und Brillen: Auge um Auge [Politicians and glasses: An eye for an eye] | Press coverage of a publication by Alexandra Fleischmann, Joris Lammers, and colleagues | By Thomas Diel
Oct 2, 2018 | University of Cologne
Politiker und Politikerinnen mit Brille werden im Experiment häufiger gewählt [Politicians wearing glasses get elected more often in an experimental setting] | Press release on a publication by Alexandra Fleischmann, Joris Lammers, and colleagues | By Frieda Berg
Sep 17, 2018 | DGPs
In-Mind erhält den Förderpreis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie [In-Mind is awarded the prize for promoting psychology by the German Psychological Association (DGPs)] | Oliver Genschow and Jan Crusius accept the prize as members of the editorial board of the In-Mind Online Magazine | By Anne Klostermann
July 10, 2018 | SPEKTRUM
Neid - Die Kirschen in Nachbars Garten [Envy—The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence] | Jan Crusius and Jens Lange on the (in)evitability of painful social comparisons | By Theodor Schaarschmidt
July, 2018 | MEIN ERBE TUT GUTES
Gutes tun steckt an [Doing good is contagious] | Alexandra Fleischmann on the influence of social comparison on moral behavior | By Angelika S. Friedl
July, 2018 | PSYCHOLOGIE HEUTE
Gemeinsam im Stress [Together under stress] | Jan Crusius on stress evoked by social comparison | By Frank Luerweg
Apr 13, 2018 | SPEKTRUM
Dürfen wir stolz sein? [Is it OK to be proud?] | Jan Crusius on functions of pride and its interplay with envy | By Theodor Schaarschmidt