Research

Perceptions of Justice and Social justice

What do people think is fair? How do they deal with perceived injustices? A special focus of our research is on the personality trait of justice sensitivity, which describes how people react to perceived, observed, or self-caused injustice. One facet we particularly focus on is justice sensitivity from the victim's perspective (short: "victim sensitivity"). People with a strong victim sensitivity tend to behave defensively in socially insecure situations: they are suspicious and afraid of being exploited by others. To protect themselves from such exploitation, they are often uncooperative and self-serving. In our research, we take a closer look at the social-cognitive processes underlying this effect and try to understand which environmental stimuli trigger a fear of exploitation or stabilize it over time. Additionally, we are interested in the role that justice sensitivity can play in a societal context, for example, in relation to political attitudes and behavior.

Punishment, Revenge, and Forgiveness

What functions do punishments fulfill? Why do people seek revenge? And under what conditions can they successfully reconcile? These questions are important not only from a basic scientific perspective, but also with regard to a better understanding of social conflicts. Our findings suggest, for example, that revenge can indeed be “sweet”, satisfying a need for justice and provide emotional satisfaction - but only if the perpetrator understands why revenge was taken. Punishment does not necessarily have to be actually carried out, but can also be imagined. We also assume that both punishment and forgiveness can be driven by prosocial motives (e.g. maintaining a relationship), self-centered or individualistic motives (e.g. feeling like a moral person) or competitive motives (e.g. devaluing another person). People who are punished or forgiven in turn try to understand the motives behind this - this is then decisive for the further course of the conflict.

Social Psychology in the Context of Legal Psychology

Social psychology examines how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by their current interpretations of themselves and their social environment (Wilson, 2022). We explore these subjective perceptions and their effects within the context of the legal system. This involves addressing different perspectives and investigating not only the perceptions of offenders and victims but also the perspectives of third-party individuals, such as those who witness a crime or whose role involves making decisions in legal contexts (e.g., judges, police officers).

From the offender's perspective, we study the motives they attribute to the punishers and how these attributions influence responses to punishment, such as motivation for change.

We also focus on victim needs, including motives for punishment, justice-related satisfaction, forgiveness processes, as well as the negative effects of victim identity and the associated narratives.

From the third-party perspective, we address questions such as:

1. How does the salience of guilt or innocence influence the weighting of errors and decision-making in legal contexts?
2. How does the expression of remorse affect societal perceptions of offenders?
3. How does the activation of criminal stereotypes alter perception and memory processes?
4. Under what conditions do victims experience blame or stigmatization?

Meta-Science: Scientific Research on the Scientific Process

Science thrives on constant critical scrutiny, further development and improvement. This requires meta-science - research about research. Our focus is particularly on the behavioral, social and cognitive sciences (e.g. psychology). Triggered by meta-scientific findings that question the replicability of empirical effects, there is currently an intense debate on how theory formation and testing in psychological research can be improved. Our own meta-scientific research examines what constitutes good science, what replicability means and what the reasons for a lack of replicability might be. Our aim is to analyze the scientific knowledge process in detail and improve it sustainably.

Science Communication and Motivated Science Reception

Science is meant to formulate questions and find answers to them. We investigate how laypeople perceive research, their attitudes and trust towards researchers and their findings, and how individual and social motives can influence the evaluation and treatment of science. At the same time, we explore how scientists themselves view research. Our findings have implications for the question of how the relationship between science and the public should be shaped. How should researchers communicate their findings, for example, in the media, and how are formats perceived that involve more lay participations, such as in citizen science?

Personality and Self-Concept in Social Situations

Personality traits and the self-concept influence human behavior – but people’s behavior and experiences also shape their personality and self-concept! Modeling these reciprocal processes and understanding the underlying mechanisms behind them is complex, but this is precisely what we attempt in our research. To this end, we have explored how personality influences social perceptions (e.g., in partnerships) and whether personality-congruent behavior causally contributes to the stabilization of trait characteristics. We have also investigated how external feedback (such as positive or negative feedback) affects a person’s self-concept. The question of how and why personality and self-concept change over time in view of social experiences and one’s own social behavior is still open.

Justice & AI in the Legal Context

How human must justice be? In this externally funded project, we examine the psychological determinants of trust in co-creation with generative artificial intelligence (AI) within the legal system. The project analyzes psychological processes that promote or hinder trust in collaboration with generative AI in legal contexts and investigates the acceptance and perspectives of various stakeholders (e.g., victims, defendants, society).

The focus is on judicial decision-making, the reliability of witness statements, and the identification of suspects using AI-powered technologies. The project is funded by the bidt .