Head of Research Unit

Prof. Dr. Kai Sassenberg
Tel.: +49 7071 979-220
k.sassenberg(aτ)iwm-kmrc.de

Secretary: Karin Kaldewey
Tel.: +49 7071 979-221
k.kaldewey(aτ)iwm-kmrc.de

 

 

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• Projects
• Motivational antecedents of perspective taking
• Self-Regulation and Information Exchange in Groups
• Self-regulation and Leadership
• Social Exclusion and Boredom in Virtual Environments
• The impact of power on reflection about social interactions
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Social Processes Lab

Social processes play an important role in net-based knowledge exchange, but also in knowledge acquisition: Self regulation and self concept determine the content and amount of information search and, consequently, also knowledge acquisition. Social factors are especially relevant for knowledge acquisition via media since it is a prominent feature of media that they reduce social information. Thus (a) social structures and (b) the reduced social information can have all the more impact. Therefore, the Social Processes Lab examines the enhancing and hindering social psychological influences on media-based knowledge acquisition. Two aspects of the influence of social processes on knowledge communication and knowledge acquisition receive particular attention:

Self regulation and self concept

Research on knowledge acquisition and exchange often initiates with an assumption that individuals are motivated to gain a more or less elaborated balanced representation of issue or object. In addition to that undirected motivation to process information accurately, strategic information search and exchange can also be observed. This type of directed motivation arises from the relevance of an issue for the self concept, such as threat to the self concept by the information to be acquired and exchanged. This research line therefore focuses on effects of self concept and self regulation (i.e., directed motivation) on information search and exchange.

Asymmetric social relationships

Many social relationships are characteristically asymmetrical. Individuals can be excluded or ignored, leaders have more power than other members of a group, and prototypical group members are more influential than more peripheral members. Research shows that status differences have an especially strong influence on group processes and group decisions when interaction is mediated by technology. In this research line we investigate both subtle and informal asymmetrical relationships, as well as those that are explicit and institutionalized, in virtual contexts.