Clara Weber, PhD student at the Social Neuroscience Lab, has been granted a scholarship to examine the microstructural and functional correlates of autism at the Yale School of Medicine. At Yale School of medicine she will be supervised by Professor Sam Payabvash.
Together with Jennifer Hundt (Lübeck), Tanja Lange (Lübeck), Harald Engler (Essen), Julie Lasselin (Stockholm) and Binka Karshikoff (Stockholm), Lena Rademacher from the Social Neuroscience Lab published an new Frontiers Research Topic which now is open for submissions.
The Research Topic focuses on immune-driven sickness behavior and its social and communicative side. Articles that either highlight these specific aspects or expand on these in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic are welcome. As it is assumed that interactions between the immune system, the brain and the mentioned psychological processes play an important role in the development and maintenance of neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse or fatigue, contributions with such a clinical focus are of particular interest.
We are happy to announce the open-contribution publication of a new research metric: The c-index
Abstract: The Cuckoo-index (c-index) is a new index that attempts to measure both the effectivity and the savviness of a scientist. The index is based on the number of publications of the scientist as author on original research manuscripts without contributing to them in any way. In a time of increasingly global competition for resources and funding, it is of great importance to collect scientific merits with the least investment. The c-index takes this into account.
Check out the full manuscript here: Cuckoo_Index_01042020
Figure 1. Illustration of the association between career success and increasing c- vs. h-index
Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash
If people master a challenging task, they experience positive emotions. A recent study from our lab finds that the emotional response is shaped by how much people think they are personally responsible for an achievement and characterizes brain activity associated with receiving outcomes in controllable environments.
Experiencing events as controllable is essential for human well-being. This sense of control depends on whether people believe that the course of events is shaped by their own doing and whether they are able to perform the required actions. The new results show that successes that depend on own actions and capabilities, such as hitting the bullseye in a game of darts, make people happier and experience pride.
The study, published in Nature Communications, investigated the emotional reaction to successes and losses in tasks that had different levels of controllability. Previous research could already show that making choices, such as betting on one color in a game of roulette, was inherently valued and preferred over conditions where no choices were possible. The present study extends these findings by letting people solve a task in which they experienced their own abilities and efforts to lift success rates above chance level.
“Such experience of control has been shown to determine whether individuals show effort and how they make career choices. The more generalized belief of internal control is also a well-established protective factor for various psychiatric conditions.” said David Stolz, Ph.D. candidate at Lübeck University and lead author of this study.
Across three studies, altogether 129 young adults completed three different simple tasks that induced varying control beliefs. First, equaling a lottery, participants were asked to click a button to initiate a gamble and to potentially collect a reward. Second, equaling a coin-flip, subjects could choose between two options of which one was later rewarded. Third, subjects were instructed to find the brightest square out of a set of several closely matching squares, providing participants with the idea that only their ability and effort determined whether they would be able to gain rewards above chance level. During all three conditions, small monetary rewards were obtained in case of successes, while the probability of winning was 50% and similar for all three conditions. In between, participants were also asked to report on their happiness and pride. As expected, control beliefs substantially increased when outcomes depended on the capability to perform the task correctly and people reported increased happiness and particularly pride in contexts of greater internal control.
“We think that the experience of pride can shape how people approach novel tasks and how much they prefer environments where they believe to have control. In this line, when people had the option to choose, those who experienced more pride were also more willing to forego money in order to play the task with greater control.” explains Frieder Paulus, assistant professor at the Social Neuroscience Lab at the Translational Psychiatry Unit at Lübeck University who conducted the study together with David Stolz and colleagues.
A complementing functional MRI study suggests that brain activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex could be responsible for building the preference for tasks offering greater control. This brain area is closely connected with dopamine neurons in the brain’s reward system and responded to both the level of control and success when people received their rewards. In addition, activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was also linked to the ups and downs in the experience of happiness and pride during the experiment. “This convergent tracking of successes and self-contributions could help people building a concept of worthiness and positive self-evaluation.” said David Stolz. “After all, it is not only important to receive a certain reward. Sometimes it is more desirable to shape the world according to one’s own needs than to be at the mercy of chance, even if the result is ultimately identical”.
Dr Laura Müller-Pinzler among others on the “cringiest trend of the campaign season” (The Guardian).
Article by Bejmanin Powers on www.popsci.com
We are very happy to share that our paper “Negativity-bias in forming beliefs about own abilities” has finally been published. In this team effort, led by Dr. Laura Müller-Pinzler, we introduce a novel social learning paradigm, the LOOP (“learning of own performance” task), that mimics everyday life performance situations. Inferring prediction error (PE) learning rates by fitting computational learning models we assessed the modulatory influence of self-relatedness, prior beliefs, and the social context on belief updating.
We find a specific negativity bias for learning about own performances. Social anxiety affected self-related negativity biases only when individuals were exposed to a judging audience. This finding might explain the persistence of negative self-images in socially anxious individuals which commonly surfaces in social settings.
The manuscript is Open Access and can be downloaded under the following link:
Negativity-bias in forming beliefs about own abilities. Müller-Pinzler L, Czekalla N, Mayer AV, Stolz DS, Gazzola V, Keysers C, Paulus FM & Krach S. Sci Rep. 2019; Oct 8; 9:14416. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50821-w
Fascinating talk by Frieder Paulus on “Contextualizing replication in the organization of the academic work force”. The talk was part of a workshop on “Replication of Crisis” organized by Prof. Lisa Malich & Prof. Cornelius Borck at the IMGWF Lübeck.
Waarom heb ik zoveel last van plaatsvervangende schaamte?
Plaatsvervangende schaamte een nutteloze emotie? Je hebt er meer aan dan je denkt.
Annalina Mayer, PhD student of the Social Neuroscience Lab, speaks at Deutschlandfunk Nova about why shaming will not stop us from showing particular behaviors.
Alkoholabhängigkeit – Was macht das Immunsystem?
Trotz der großen gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung sind die Ursachen für die Entstehung der Alkoholabhängigkeit bisher nur unzureichend verstanden. Ein neuer Forschungsansatz untersucht die Rolle des Immunsystems. Entzündungen im Körper können, wie bei der Depression gezeigt, auch bei Alkoholabhängigkeit bestehen und bei einer Untergruppe von Patienten eine neue Therapiemöglichkeit darstellen. Um Entzündungsparameter bei Alkoholabhängigkeit und ihren Zusammenhang mit der Psyche genauer zu untersuchen, führt die AG Soziale Neurowissenschaft aktuell eine klinische Studie durch welche die Referentin, Frau Johanna Voges am Abend vorstellen wird.
Why do we feel vicarious embarrassment? Frieder Paulus explores embarrassment on behalf of others at the University of Lübeck, Germany. He says that the main reason for feeling embarrassed is the violation of rules and conventions. Although the feeling of embarrassment itself is not particularly pleasant, it is generally something positive and constructive for the individual.
Check out the new podcast (only in German):
On June 25th we had a great lab visit at the DECISION NEUROSCIENCE OF HUMAN INTERACTIONS lab in Hamburg!
From June 7th – June 14th several lab members presented their newest data at the Annual Meeting of the Organization of Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) in Rome.
Link to the article at Frontiers in Communication – Political Communication: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01487/full
Coverage of the topic by:
The Atlantic: Americans Are Getting Secondhand Embarrassment From Trump.
The Guardian: Spike in tweets about ’embarrassment’ under Trump, study finds.
Mother Jones Magazine: Researchers Just Found a Way to Map Trump’s 10 Most Embarrassing Moments Using Twitter
For a long time, Gilles-de-la-Tourette Syndrome (GTS) has been considered a motor disorder characterized by its dominant features of vocal and motor tics. Neuroscientific research on GTS has accordingly focused on dysfunctional motor and motor control brain networks, most prominently the frontostriatal circuitry. Some of the most prominent features of GTS are, however, inherently social by nature, most notably echophenomena, coprolalia or non-obscene socially inappropriate behaviors. Echophenomena refer to automatic imitative behavior and include both echopraxia, repetition of actions; and echolalia, repetition of sounds and language. (further reading)
Topic editors: Ulrike Krämer, Sören Krach, Clare Eddy & Alexander Münchau
Dr. Lena Rademacher received funding by the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Foundation to study the interaction of cortisol, oxytocin and the dopaminergic reward system in alcohol addiction. We are looking forward to start this very ambitious collaboration together with Prof. Dr. Schmid (Department of Internal Medicine I) and Prof. Dr. Junghanns (Department of Psychiatry)!
For anybody who is interested in research on vicarious embarrassment we do recommend to watch this very illustrative and informative Youtube-video. It nicely summarizes the neural mechanisms underlying empathy and how these relate to vicarious emotions such as “Fremdscham”
Great symposium on “Understanding others” hosted by Anat Perry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Amidst the mountains of Piermont in the province of Cuneo we held our second joined Social/Cognitive Neuroscience Retreat.
Together with the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the Department of Neurology (Prof. Ulrike Krämer) we will study a social event coding approach to echophenomena in Tourette.
Frieder Paulus explains how social closeness impacts the experience of vicarious embarrassment and why every kind of embarrassment demands an audience.
See latest interview at www.sueddeutsche.de
The causal role of the somatosensory cortex in prosocial behaviour. Gallo S, Paracampo R, Müller-Pinzler L, Severo MC, Blömer L, Fernandes-Henriques C, Henschel A, Lammes BK, Maskaljunas T, Suttrup J, Avenanti A, Keysers C, Gazzola V. Elife. 2018 May 8;7. pii: e32740. doi: 10.7554/eLife.32740.
Scientists receive grants, bonuses, and tenure depending on the perceived impact of the journals in which they publish their research. Using the journal impact factor (JIF) for such purposes results in reasoning and argumentation fallacies. In our new publication we describe several “impact factor fallacies” by applying ideas from reasoning and argumentation research. We argue that using the JIF in policy and decision making in academia is based on false beliefs and unwarranted inferences and outline why we think that the world of scientific publishing is more complex than can be expressed with a two-digit number.
Link to the article at Frontiers in Psychology: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01487/full
Coverage of the topic by The Scientist: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/opinion-on-the-impact-factor-fallacy-31809
We are happy to announce that Johanna Voges (physician) received a 2-year stipend by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)!
In her PhD, Johanna will focus on social reward processing in alcoholism and examine the interactions with the immune and stress system.
Dr. Lena Rademacher was granted a “Eigene Stelle” by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for two years.
In her project she will investigate the “Social aspects of restrictive eating behavior in anorexia nervosa”. Very cool!!
Frontiers in Psychiatry welcomes Professor Sören Krach from Lübeck University, Germany, as Specialty Chief Editor of the new Social Cognition section
Professor Sören Krach heads the Social Neuroscience in Psychiatry group at Lübeck University’s Social Neuroscience Lab. His clinical research focuses primarily on Autism Spectrum Disorder and social anxiety.
As the Specialty Chief Editor of the new Frontiers in Psychiatry section, he aims “to encourage scientists in the field of psychiatry to dare new avenues in the study of social cognition.” He also hopes to create a space for researchers to embrace the full methodological breadths of the field.
“Humans constantly represent themselves in the context of their surrounding social world and social interactions eminently shape how humans perceive, feel, and behave,” he says. “Perturbations in the capability to properly engage in social interactions have a severe impact on personal wellbeing. Accordingly, most psychiatric conditions reveal perturbations in social cognition.” (…)
New York magazine’s “Science of Us” editor explains the compelling psychology of awkwardness, and why learning to accept your cringeworthy moments can be a social advantage.
“Have you ever said goodbye to someone, only to discover that you’re both walking in the same direction? Or had your next thought fly out of your brain in the middle of a presentation? Or accidentally liked an old photo on someone’s Instagram or Facebook, thus revealing yourself to be a creepy social media stalker?”
Melissa Dahl, editor of New York magazine’s “Science of Us” website, has experienced all of those awkward situations, and many more. Now she offers a thoughtful, original take on what it really means to feel awkward. She invites you to follow her into all sorts of mortifying moments, such as reading her middle school diary on stage in front of hundreds of strangers, striking up conversations with busy New Yorkers on the subway, and even taking improv comedy lessons. [more at Penguin Random House]
Our new webpage is online! Here you will find information and updates on the work of our group.
David Stolz and other members of the SNL have been featured in a national TV show on social behavior. Please find the video and a teaser for the show below (in German).
“Warum klatschen wir, wenn alle klatschen? Warum kaufen wir dort, wo alle kaufen? Menschen imitieren das Verhalten der Gruppe, zu der sie sich zugehörig fühlen oder zu der sie gehören möchten – egal ob Nachbarn, Freunde oder Arbeitskollegen. Die Journalistin und Tagesschau-Sprecherin Linda Zervakis beleuchtet menschliches Sozialverhalten im Alltag.” [to the Video]
We have put together some tricky questions on “vicarious embarrassment” and “fremdscham” at the German ZEIT ONLINE. Please enjoy (in German)!
“Wann tritt Fremdscham am ehesten auf? Kann Babys etwas peinlich sein? Und welche Politikerin schämte sich für Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg? Beat the Prof Peinlichkeit!” [to the Quiz]
Our opinion on the Impact Factor and the rationale for (not) using it for evaluating scientific excellence has been featured in “The Scientist” online. In our biorxiv preprint you cand find a more detailed explanation of our argument.
“Papers published in low-impact journals are not necessarily low-quality scientific contributions.” [link to the article]
We are very happy to announce that Lena Rademacher’s most recent PET work on the recovery of dopamine function in former smokers has been featured on Reuters by Lisa Rappaport. The Biological Psychiatry paper contains all the details and can be found here.
“The brain makes less dopamine, a chemical involved in both pleasure and addiction, when people smoke but this temporary deficit may be reversed when smokers kick the habit, a small experiment suggests. “It is assumed that the brain adapts to the repeated nicotine-induced release of dopamine by producing less dopamine,” said lead study author Dr. Lena Rademacher of Lubeck University in Germany.” [link to the article]
David Stolz very nicely explains in national TV how social exclusion makes you suffer and why we need friends that support us. In this show on the famous ZDF David and the host Eric take kids and youngsters on a tour through the MRI. Check out the video below (in German).
“Freunde machen glücklich! Ob das wirklich so ist, findet Eric heraus…” [to the Video]
We have just come across this wonderful article by Julia Layton on HowStuffWorks. The article begins with a cringeworthy video of Ted Cruz and then nicely explains our take on why we experience such odd emotions as vicarious embarrassment for another’s predicaments.
“In this video from a January campaign event in Iowa, presidential hopeful Ted Cruz leans in to give his young daughter a kiss on the cheek. What happens next is pretty brutal: Cameras rolling, the 7-year-old flicks repeatedly at his face and then protests “Ow, ow, ow” as she tries to physically escape him.” [link to the full article]
This is a very intersting read on the pain the media corps feels when confronted with awkward acting and decisions of politicians by Haddas Gold in POLITICO. Somewhere in the middle of the piece on Jeb Bush’s excursions in the field you can also find reference to the famous “Fremdscham”.
“At a recent campaign Jeb Bush event in South Carolina, three voters in a row who were supposed to be asking him questions instead started giving the gentle-spirited candidate, who once pledged to run a “joyful” campaign, advice on how to be sharper.
It felt more like an intervention than a town hall. Reporters sitting at a table reserved for the press recalled making rueful eye contact with each other, with the unsaid sentiment, “Poor Jeb.”” [link to the full article]
It seems that Jeb Bush’s campaign offers a lot of examples illustrating the motivation for our research. In this article by Lucy Tiven on attn: she draws attention on a recent incident in New Hampshire.
“Jeb Bush is no stranger to embarrassment. A new report explains why despite his flubs and missteps, we’re prone to feel for the younger Bush brother.
A prime example of Jeb Bush’s embarrassing moments.
On Tuesday, the Former Florida Gov. pled for the audience of a New Hampshire town hall to “Please clap,” according to an MSNBC report.” [the link to the full article]
By: Melissa Dahl
Consider the recent adventures in awkwardness from Jeb Bush’s campaign: On Monday, the former Florida governor took the stage at a pre-caucus briefing in Des Moines after being introduced as “George — er, Jeb — Bush.” (the link to the full article)
This month, aggravating Alzheimer’s, brain banking for autism, babbling about BabyLab, and meta-neuroscience.
Von Karin Prummer
Warum schämt man sich eigentlich für die Missgeschicke anderer? Wissenschaftler haben sich der Frage angenommen und das Phänomen “Fremdschämen” untersucht. (Link zum kompletten Artikel)
