Motivated Cognition in Cooperation.

Successful cooperation is tightly linked to individuals' beliefs about their interaction partners, the decision setting, and existing norms, perceptions, and values. This article reviews and integrates findings from judgment and decision-making, social and cognitive psychology, political science, and economics, developing a systematic overview of the mechanisms underlying motivated cognition in cooperation. We elaborate on how theories and concepts related to motivated cognition developed in various disciplines define the concept and describe its functionality. We explain why beliefs play such an essential role in cooperation, how they can be distorted, and how this fosters or harms cooperation. We also highlight how individual differences and situational factors change the propensity to engage in motivated cognition. In the form of a construct map, we provide a visualization of the theoretical and empirical knowledge structure regarding the role of motivated cognition, including its many interdependencies, feedback loops, and moderating influences. We conclude with a brief suggestion for a future research agenda based on this compiled evidence.

Care transition of trauma patients: Processes with articulation work before and after handoff.

While care transitions influence quality of care, less work studies transitions between hospital units. We studied care transitions from the operating room (OR) to pediatric and adult intensive critical care units (ICU) using Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS)-based process modeling. We interviewed twenty-nine physicians (surgery, anesthesia, pediatric critical care) and nurses (OR, ICU) and administered the AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture items about handoffs, care transitions and teamwork. Care transitions are complex, spatio-temporal processes and involve work during the transition (i.e., handoff and transport) and preparation and follow up activities (i.e., articulation work). Physicians defined the transition as starting earlier and ending later than nurses. Clinicians in the OR to adult ICU transition without a team handoff reported significantly less information loss and better cooperation, despite positive interview data. A team handoff and supporting articulation work should increase awareness, improving quality and safety of care transitions.

Cognitive and affective processes of prosociality.

One piece of the puzzle to prosocial behavior is understanding its underlying cognitive and affective processes. We discuss how modeling behavior in social dilemmas can be expanded by integrating cognitive theories and attention-based models of decision processes, and models of affective influences on prosocial decision-making. We review theories speaking to the interconnections of cognition and affect, identifying the need for further theory development regarding modeling moment-by-moment decision-making processes. We discuss how these theoretical perspectives are mirrored in empirical evidence, drawn from classical outcome-oriented as well as contemporary process-tracing research. Finally, we develop perspectives for future research trajectories aiming to further elucidate the processes by which prosocial decisions are formed, by linking process measures to usually unobservable cognitive and affective reactions.

How norm violators rise and fall in the eyes of others: The role of sanctions.

Norm violators demonstrate that they can behave as they wish, which makes them appear powerful. Potentially, this is the beginning of a self-reinforcing loop, in which greater perceived power invites further norm violations. Here we investigate the possibility that sanctions can break this loop by reducing the power that observers attribute to norm violators. Despite an abundance of research on the effects of sanctions as deterrents for norm-violating behavior, little is known about how sanctions may change perceptions of individuals who do (or do not) violate norms. Replicating previous research, we found in two studies (N1 = 203, N2 = 132) that norm violators are perceived as having greater volitional capacity compared to norm abiders. Qualifying previous research, however, we demonstrate that perceptions of volition only translate into attributions of greater power in the absence of sanctions. We discuss implications for social hierarchies and point out avenues for further research on the social dynamics of power.

Prosocial Preferences Condition Decision Effort and Ingroup Biased Generosity in Intergroup Decision-Making.

Ingroup favoritism and discrimination against outgroups are pervasive in social interactions. To uncover the cognitive processes underlying generosity towards in- and outgroup members, we employ eye-tracking in two pre registered studies. We replicate the well-established ingroup favoritism effect and uncover that ingroup compared to outgroup decision settings are characterized by systematic differences in information search effort (i.e., increased response times and number of fixations, more inspected information) and attention distribution. Surprisingly, these results showed a stronger dependency on the in- vs. out-group setting for more individualistic compared to prosocial participants: Whereas individualistic decision makers invested relatively less effort into information search when decisions involved out-group members, prosocial decision makers' effort differed less between in- and outgroup decisions. Therein, choice and processing findings showed differences, indicating that inferences about the decision process from choices alone can be misleading. Implications for intergroup research and the regulation of intergroup conflict are discussed.

The fire burns within: Individual motivations for self-sacrifice.

Extreme self-sacrifice in intergroup conflict may be driven not only by situational factors generating "fusion," but also by interindividual differences. Social value orientation is discussed as a potential contributor to self-harming behavior outside of intergroup conflicts and to the general propensity to participate in intergroup conflict. Social value orientation may therefore also be a person-specific determinant of extreme self-sacrifice in intergroup conflict.