Thomas Wolfgang Schubert

• Fiske, A. P., Schubert, T. W., & Seibt, B. (2025). Seeking communal emotions in social practices that culturally evolved to evoke emotions: Worship, kitten videos, memorials, narratives of love, and more. Annual Review of Psychology, 76.
• Tran, T. Q., Langlotz, T., Young, J., Schubert, T. W., & Regenbrecht, H. (2024). Classifying presence scores: Insights and analysis from two decades of the igroup presence questionnaire (ipq). ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 31(5), 1-26.
• Lizarazo Pereira, D. M., Schubert, T. W., & Roth, J. (2022). Moved by social justice: the role of Kama muta in collective action toward racial equality. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 780615.
  Diana Lizarazo's MA thesis that I supervised together with Jenny Roth. Diana works now for CEPI
• Petersen, E., Fiske, A. P., & Schubert, T. W. (2019). The role of social relational emotions for human-nature connectedness. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 498311.
  Part of Evi Petersen's PhD thesis that I co-supervised. Evi is now at OsloMet
• Schubert, T. W. (2020). Grounding of rank: Embodiment, space, and magnitude. Current Opinion in Psychology, 33, 222-226.
• Zickfeld, J. H., Schubert, T. W., Seibt, B., Blomster, J. K., Arriaga, P., Basabe, N., ... & Fiske, A. P. (2019). Kama muta: Conceptualizing and measuring the experience often labelled being moved across 19 nations and 15 languages. Emotion, 19(3), 402.
  Part of Janis Zickfeld's PhD thesis that I supervised. Janis is now at Aarhus University

• Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang (2026). Extending the reach of relational models theory: measurement, model mixing, null relations, and mere dominance. Theory and society. ISSN 0304-2421. 55. doi: 10.1007/s11186-026-09712-z. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Relational Models Theory (RMT) has provided a remarkably durable framework for understanding how humans coordinate social life through four elementary relational models. Yet despite its success, key issues at the periphery of the theory remain underdeveloped, misunderstood, or poorly operationalized. This article addresses several of these edge cases. First, I examine the available measurements and note that they support theory testing but bring with them several challenges. One of them is that relationships frequently combine multiple relational models across domains, a complexity that RMT assumes but which classic measurement traditions may interpret as a nuisance; this is my second point. Third, I point out that because established measurement focuses on relations as units, it lacks indexing whether one is superior or subordinate in an authority ranking relation. Fourth, I highlight the neglected role of null and asocial modes of interaction, which dominate everyday urban life but are largely absent from measurement instruments and theoretical applications. Fifth, I emphasize the differentiation between legitimate authority ranking and coercive dominance. Last, I discuss the temporal limits of relational acts. Together, these points suggest that RMT’s utility lies not only in its taxonomy of relational models but also in its capacity to illuminate their mixtures, absences, and boundaries.

• Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Seibt, Beate (2026). How to get from here to a relational social psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. ISSN 0140-525X. 49. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X2510126X. Full text in Research Archive
• Fiske, Alan Page; Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Seibt, Beate (2025). Seeking Communal Emotions in Social Practices That Culturally Evolved to Evoke Emotions: Worship, Kitten Videos, Memorials, Narratives of Love, and More. Annual Review of Psychology. ISSN 0066-4308. 76(1), p. 607–633. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-020124-023338. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In many instances, emotions do not simply happen to people by chance; Often, people actively seek out an emotion by engaging in practices that have culturally evolved to evoke that emotion. Such practices tend to be perpetuated and spread if people want to experience the emotion, like to recall it and tell others about it, want to give the emotion to others and experience it together, and/or regard the emotion as a sign of something wonderful. We illustrate this with a newly delineated emotion, kama muta. Many social practices around the world are structured to evoke kama muta. In those culturally evolved practices, and outside them, what typically evokes kama muta is a sudden intensification of communal sharing, or a sudden shift of attention to a communal sharing relationship. It seems probable that other social-relational emotions are also evoked by sudden changes in relationships or the sudden salience of a relationship. This change or saliencing may be incorporated in social practices that are perpetuated because they evoke the sought-after emotion. We suggest that such practices, as well as sudden changes in relationships that occur elsewhere, are especially promising places to discover social-relational emotions.

• Steinnes, Kamilla Knutsen; Lyshol, Johanna Katarina Blomster; Zickfeld, Janis H.; Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Seibt, Beate (2024). Kama Muta: The Cuteness Emotion. In Al-Shawaf, Laith & Shackelford, Todd K. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780197544754. p. 339–356. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197544754.013.16. Full text in Research Archive
• Tran, Tanh Quang; Langlotz, Tobias; Young, Jacob; Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Regenbrecht, Holger (2024). Classifying Presence Scores: Insights and Analysis from Two Decades of the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ). ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). ISSN 1073-0516. 31(5). doi: 10.1145/3689046. Full text in Research Archive
• Brito, Rodrigo; Waldzus, Sven; Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang; Sekerdej, Maciej; Louceiro, Ana & Simão, Cláudia (2023). Commensality constitutes communalism: Producing emergent bonds in experimental small groups by sharing food and drink. European Journal of Social Psychology. ISSN 0046-2772. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2956. Full text in Research Archive
• Herting, Anders Kuvaas & Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang (2022). Valence, sensations and appraisals co-occurring with feeling moved: evidence on kama muta theory from intra-individually cross-correlated time series. Cognition & Emotion. ISSN 0269-9931. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2022.2089871. Full text in Research Archive
• Pereira, Diana M. Lizarazo; Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Roth, Jenny (2022). Moved by Social Justice: The Role of Kama Muta in Collective Action Toward Racial Equality. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.780615. Full text in Research Archive
• Grüning, David J. & Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang (2022). Emotional Campaigning in Politics: Being Moved and Anger in Political Ads Motivate to Support Candidate and Party. Frontiers in Psychology. 12. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.781851. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Ven, Niels van de; Pich, Olivia; Schubert, Thomas; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Vingerhoets, Ad J.J.M. (2021). Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. ISSN 0022-1031. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104137. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Participants were presented with four pictures out of 100 possible targets with or without digitally-added tears. We confirmed the main prediction that seeing a tearful individual elicits the intention to support, d = 0.49 [0.43, 0.55]. Our data suggest that this effect could be mediated by perceiving the crying target as warmer and more helpless, feeling more connected, as well as feeling more empathic concern for the crier, but not by an increase in personal distress of the observer. The effect was moderated by the situational valence, identifying the target as part of one's group, and trait empathic concern. A neutral situation, high trait empathic concern, and low identification increased the effect. We observed high heterogeneity across countries that was, via split-half validation, best explained by country-level GDP per capita and subjective well-being with stronger effects for higher-scoring countries. These findings suggest that tears can function as social glue, providing one possible explanation why emotional crying persists into adulthood.

• Janicke-Bowles, Sophie H.; Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Lyshol, Johanna Katarina Blomster (2021). Kama Muta as a Eudaimonic Entertainment Experience. In Vorderer, Peter & Klimmt, Christoph (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Entertainment Theory. Oxford University Press. ISSN 9780190072216. p. 402–418. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190072216.013.22. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Schubert, Thomas; Herting, Anders Kuvaas; Grahe, Jon E. & Faasse, Kate (2020). Correlates of Health-Protective Behavior During the Initial Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Norway. Frontiers in Psychology. 11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.564083. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The coronavirus outbreak manifested in Norway in March 2020. It was met with a combination of mandatory changes (closing of public institutions) and recommended changes (hygiene behavior, physical distancing). It has been emphasized that health-protective behavior such as increased hygiene or physical distancing are able to slow the spread of infections and flatten the curve. Drawing on previous health-psychological studies during the outbreak of various pandemics, we investigated psychological and demographic factors predicting the adoption and engagement in health-protective behavior and changes in such behavior, attitudes, and emotions over time. We recruited a non-representative sample of Norwegians (n = 8676) during a 15-day period (March 12–26 2020) at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Norway. Employing both traditional methods and exploratory machine learning, we replicated earlier findings that engagement in health-protective behavior is associated with specific demographic characteristics. Further, we observed that increased media exposure, perceiving measures as effective, and perceiving the outbreak as serious was positively related to engagement in health-protective behavior. We also found indications that hygiene and physical distancing behaviors were related to somewhat different psychological and demographic factors. Over the sampling period, reported engagement in physical distancing increased, while experienced concern or fear declined. Contrary to previous studies, we found no or only small positive predictions by confidence in authorities, knowledge about the outbreak, and perceived individual risk, while all of those variables were rather high. These findings provide guidance for health communications or interventions targeting the adoption of health-protective behaviors in order to diminish the spread of COVID-19.

• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Arriaga, Patrícia; Santos, S. Vilar; Schubert, Thomas & Seibt, Beate (2020). Tears of joy, aesthetic chills and heartwarming feelings: Physiological correlates of Kama Muta. Psychophysiology. ISSN 0048-5772. 57(12). doi: 10.1111/psyp.13662. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Situations involving increased closeness or exceptional kindness are often labeled as moving or touching and individuals often report bodily symptoms, including tears, goosebumps, and warmth in the body. Recently, the kama muta framework has been proposed as a cross‐cultural conceptualization of these experiences. Prior research on kama muta has mostly relied on subjective reports. Thus, our main goal of the present project was to examine the pattern of physiological responses to kama muta inducing videos and compare it to the patterns for the similar, though distinct emotions of sadness and awe. One hundred forty‐four Portuguese and Norwegian participants were individually exposed to all three emotion conditions. Several psychophysiological indexes of the autonomic nervous system were collected continuously during exposure, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and electrodermal activity, facial EMG, skin temperature, as well as piloerection and lachrymation using cameras. Overall, the results partly replicated previous findings on being moved experiences and self‐report studies. Strong self‐reported experiences of kama muta were associated with increased phasic skin conductance, skin temperature, piloerection, and zygomaticus activity, while they were associated with reduced heart rate, respiration rate, and tonic skin conductance. The physiological profile of kama muta was successfully distinguished from sadness and awe, partly corroborating self‐report evidence. We obtained no clear evidence of a kama muta association with the occurrence of lachrymation or heart rate variability. Our findings provide a systematic overview of psychophysiological response to experiences of kama muta, and help to inform future research on this emotion and positive emotions in general.

• Wang, Yin; Schubert, Thomas & Quadflieg, Susanne (2020). Behavioral and neural evidence for an evaluative bias against other people's mundane interracial encounters. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience. ISSN 1749-5016. 14(12), p. 1329–1339. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaa005. Full text in Research Archive
• Prendergast, Claire Nicole & Schubert, Thomas (2020). Investigating Reflexive Responses to Explicit and Implicit Forms of Social Exclusion Using Immersive Virtual Environment Technology. Frontiers in Psychology. 11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.575783. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Humans are strongly affected by social exclusion, a multifaceted and complex phenomenon of social life. However, individuals tend to respond differently depending on a multitude of individual and contextual factors. Firstly, with a view to increasing the ecological validity and experimental control of an exclusion manipulation in the laboratory setting, we made use of immersive virtual environment technology (IVET; an Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset) to create a new exclusion paradigm. Secondly, given that a recent meta-analytic report on reflexive responses (i.e., affect and physiology) to manipulations of exclusion in the laboratory setting cites inconsistencies across findings (Blackhart et al., 2009), we focused on the form of exclusion manipulated to illustrate how this factor may help to explain the divergences in responses. We thus investigated how explicit and implicit forms of social exclusion may have a differential impact on self-reported affect, as well as on electrodermal and cardiovascular activity. Results from this laboratory study conducted with a varied sample of the local population made salient the affordances of IVET as a tool in exclusion research. They also helped to reconcile the conflicting findings in the literature relating to differences in the level of negative affect generated and shed light on physiological arousal in the wake of being excluded in different ways.

• Schubert, Thomas (2020). Grounding of rank: embodiment, space, and magnitude. Current Opinion in Psychology. ISSN 2352-250X. 33, p. 222–226. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.09.012. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Humans build hierarchical relations, in which they coordinate according to rankings. Rankings need to be mentally represented in order to be communicated and constituted. These mental representations are grounded: They depend on the body and its interactions with the physical and social environment. The review reports evidence from four fields on the nature of this grounding. Work on nonverbal behavior shows that rank is inferred from various magnitudes related to bodily size and strength. Conversely, rank is envisioned using the same magnitudes. Schematized versions of these and other magnitude and dimensional cues influence cognition about ranks. Finally, cognition about ranks shows characteristics of magnitude. These lines of work converge in the conclusion that humans have developed a general representation of rank as a magnitude grounded in bodily size and strength.

• Fiske, Alan Page; Seibt, Beate & Schubert, Thomas (2019). The Sudden Devotion Emotion: Kama Muta and the Cultural Practices Whose Function Is to Evoke It. Emotion Review. ISSN 1754-0739. 11(1), p. 74–86. doi: 10.1177/1754073917723167. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  When communal sharing relationships (CSRs) suddenly intensify, people experience an emotion that English speakers may label, depending on context, “moved,” “touched,” “heart-warming,” “nostalgia,” “patriotism,” or “rapture” (although sometimes people use each of these terms for other emotions). We call the emotion kama muta (Sanskrit, “moved by love”). Kama muta evokes adaptive motives to devote and commit to the CSRs that are fundamental to social life. It occurs in diverse contexts and appears to be pervasive across cultures and throughout history, while people experience it with reference to its cultural and contextual meanings. Cultures have evolved diverse practices, institutions, roles, narratives, arts, and artifacts whose core function is to evoke kama muta. Kama muta mediates much of human sociality.

• Petersen, Evi; Fiske, Alan Page & Schubert, Thomas (2019). The role of social relational emotions for human-nature connectedness. Frontiers in Psychology. 10:2759, p. 1–6. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02759. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Little is known about the psychological processes through which people connect to nature. From social psychology, we know that emotions play an essential role when connecting to others. In this article, we argue that social connectedness and connectedness to nature are underpinned by the same emotions. More specifically, we propose that social relational emotions are crucial to understanding the process through which humans connect to nature. Beside other emotions, kama muta (Sanskrit: being moved by love) might play a particular crucial role when connecting to nature. Future research should consider the role of social relational emotions in human-nature relationships.

• Hu, Chuan-Peng; Yin, Ji-Xing; Lindenberg, Siegwart; Dalğar, İlker; Weissgerber, Sophia C. & Vergara, Rodrigo C. [Show all 32 contributors for this article] (2019). Data from the Human Penguin Project, a cross-national dataset testing social thermoregulation principles. Scientific Data. 6:32, p. 1–7. doi: 10.1038/s41597-019-0029-2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In the Human Penguin Project (N = 1755), 15 research groups from 12 countries collected body temperature, demographic variables, social network indices, seven widely-used psychological scales and two newly developed questionnaires (the Social Thermoregulation and Risk Avoidance Questionnaire (STRAQ-1) and the Kama Muta Frequency Scale (KAMF)). They were collected to investigate the relationship between environmental factors (e.g., geographical, climate etc.) and human behaviors, which is a long-standing inquiry in the scientific community. More specifically, the present project was designed to test principles surrounding the idea of social thermoregulation, which posits that social networks help people to regulate their core body temperature. The results showed that all scales in the current project have sufficient to good psychometrical properties. Unlike previous crowdsourced projects, this dataset includes not only the cleaned raw data but also all the validation of questionnaires in 9 different languages, thus providing a valuable resource for psychological scientists who are interested in cross-national, environment-human interaction studies.

• Zhang, Pengfei; Schubert, Thomas & Zhu, Lei (2019). The effect of secondary task on the association between power and space. Social Cognition. ISSN 0278-016X. 37(1), p. 1–17. doi: 10.1521/soco.2019.37.1.1. Full text in Research Archive
• Giessner, Steffen Robert & Schubert, Thomas (2019). Power and vertical positions in an organization chart: A pre-registered replication report of study 3A and a modification of study 1A, Giessner & Schubert (2007). Collabra: Psychology. ISSN 2474-7394. 5(1). doi: 10.1525/collabra.216. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Study 1a of Giessner and Schubert (2007) found a causal effect of vertical spatial cues on power judgments. Recent work showed that this was a false positive (Klein et al., 2018). Here, we test whether another paradigm (i.e., original Study 3a) can be replicated, and develop an adjusted paradigm of original Study 1a to clarify what kind of vertical spatial cues influence power judgments. Our current preregistered Study 1 confirms original Study 3a of Giessner and Schubert (2007). It shows that information about the power of a leader is represented spatially by placing the leader’s box higher in an organigram. Our current Study 2 distinguishes vertical ranks from magnitude of vertical spatial difference without changes in rank. The original Study 1a and the failed replication manipulated only magnitude while leaving rank equal. We confirm the null finding here. However, we also find that vertical rank order does indeed affect power judgments, again in a preregistered study, and in line with prior work. In sum, building on earlier work and the failed replication, we clarify that vertical rank order, but not magnitude of elevation, are associated with power judgments.

• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Schubert, Thomas; Seibt, Beate & Fiske, Alan P. (2019). Moving Through the Literature: What Is the Emotion Often Denoted Being Moved? Emotion Review. ISSN 1754-0739. doi: 10.1177/1754073918820126. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  When do people say that they are moved, and does this experience constitute a unique emotion? We review theory and empirical research on being moved across psychology and philosophy. We examine feeling labels, elicitors, valence, bodily sensations, and motivations. We find that the English lexeme being moved typically (but not always) refers to a distinct and potent emotion that results in social bonding; often includes tears, piloerection, chills, or a warm feeling in the chest; and is often described as pleasurable, though sometimes as a mixed emotion. While we conclude that it is a distinct emotion, we also recommend studying it in a more comprehensive emotion framework, instead of using the ambiguous vernacular term being moved as a scientific term.

• Schubert, Thomas; Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Seibt, Beate & Fiske, Alan Page (2018). Moment-to-moment changes in feeling moved match changes in closeness, tears, goosebumps, and warmth: time series analyses. Cognition & Emotion. ISSN 0269-9931. 32(1), p. 174–184. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2016.1268998. Full text in Research Archive
• Holmgren, Jostein; Isager, Peder Mortvedt & Schubert, Thomas (2018). Evidence for magnitude representations of social hierarchies: Size and distance effects. PLOS ONE. 13(9). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203263. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Schubert, Thomas; Seibt, Beate; Blomster, Johanna Katarina; Arriaga, Patrícia & Basabe, Nekane [Show all 35 contributors for this article] (2018). Kama Muta: Conceptualizing and Measuring the Experience Often Labelled Being Moved Across 19 Nations and 15 Languages. Emotion. ISSN 1528-3542. 19(3), p. 402–424. doi: 10.1037/emo0000450. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  English-speakers sometimes say that they feel “moved to tears,” “emotionally touched,” “stirred,” or that something “warmed their heart;” other languages use similar passive contact metaphors to refer to an affective state. The authors propose and measure the concept of kama muta to understand experiences often given these and other labels. Do the same experiences evoke the same kama muta emotion across nations and languages? They conducted studies in 19 different countries, 5 continents, 15 languages, with a total of 3,542 participants. They tested the construct while validating a comprehensive scale to measure the appraisals, valence, bodily sensations, motivation, and lexical labels posited to characterize kama muta. The results are congruent with theory and previous findings showing that kama muta is a distinct positive social relational emotion that is evoked by experiencing or observing a sudden intensification of communal sharing. It is commonly accompanied by a warm feeling in the chest, moist eyes or tears, chills or piloerection, feeling choked up or having a lump in the throat, buoyancy, and exhilaration. It motivates affective devotion and moral commitment to communal sharing. Although the authors observed some variations across cultures, these 5 facets of kama muta are highly correlated in every sample, supporting the validity of the construct and the measure.

• Toscano, Hugo; Schubert, Thomas & Giessner, Steffen Robert (2018). Eye Gaze and Head Posture Jointly Influence Judgments of Dominance, Physical Strength, and Anger. Journal of nonverbal behavior. ISSN 0191-5886. p. 1–25. doi: 10.1007/s10919-018-0276-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Social status hierarchies are a universal principle of organization in human societies. Status judgments are often influenced by perceptions of the face and posture. Two important nonverbal cues of social status are head postures and eye gaze. Prior research has shown contradictory results and little is known about the interaction of these two cues. Study 1 investigated how eye gaze (direct vs. averted) and head postures (bowed vs. neutral vs. raised) impact judgments of dominance and physical strength. Judgments of dominance were influenced more than judgments of physical strength. Furthermore, raised heads implied dominance and strength, but in contrast to common assumptions, a bowed head conveyed dominance if the eyes gazed at the observer. Study 2 showed that bowed heads with direct gaze conveyed anger, potentially explaining the increased judgments of dominance. Taken together, the results show that head posture and gaze interactively modulated status-related traits and emotions, namely, dominance, strength, and anger, and help clarify prior incompatible findings on head postures and eye gaze. This is a pre-print of an article published in Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-018-0276-5

• Seibt, Beate; Schubert, Thomas; Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich & Fiske, Alan Page (2018). Touching the Base: Heart-Warming Ads from the 2016 U.S. Election Moved Viewers to Partisan Tears. Cognition & Emotion. ISSN 0269-9931. 33, p. 197–212. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1441128. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Some political ads used in the 2016 U.S. election evoked feelings colloquially known as being moved to tears. We conceptualise this phenomenon as a positive social emotion that appraises and motivates communal relations, is accompanied by physical sensations (including lachrymation, piloerection, chest warmth), and often labelled metaphorically. We surveyed U.S. voters in the fortnight before the 2016 U.S. election. Selected ads evoked the emotion completely and reliably, but in a partisan fashion: Clinton voters were moved to tears by three selected Clinton ads, and Trump voters were moved to tears by two Trump ads. Viewers were much less moved by ads of the candidate they did not support. Being moved to tears predicted intention to vote for the candidate depicted. We conclude that some contemporary political advertising is able to move its audience to tears, and thereby motivates support. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cognition and Emotion on 07 Mar 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02699931.2018.1441128

• IJzerman, Hans; Lindenberg, Siegwart; Dalgar, Ilker; Weissgerber, Sophia C.; Vergara, Rodrigo C. & Cairo, Athena [Show all 31 contributors for this article] (2018). The Human Penguin Project: Climate, Social Integration, and Core Body Temperature. Collabra: Psychology. ISSN 2474-7394. 4(1). doi: 10.1525/collabra.165. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Ven, Niels van de; Schubert, Thomas & Vingerhoets, Ad J.J.M. (2018). Are tearful individuals perceived as less competent? Probably not. Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology. ISSN 2374-3603. doi: 10.1080/23743603.2018.1514254. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  What are the social signals of emotional tears? This question has fascinated scholars ever since Darwin. Studies have suggested several interpersonal effects of emotional tears. A recent article presented evidence in three studies that tearful individuals are not only perceived as warmer but also less competent than their non-tearful counterparts. However, the competence effect was relatively small, and a recent replication failed to find such an effect in two different populations while the warmth effect was replicated. This questions the generalizability of the effect of tears on perceived competence. To test whether individuals expressing emotional tears are really perceived as less competent and what boundary conditions such an effect might have, we specified a decision tree of three different studies in which we test differences between the original reference study and the replication. We replicated previous findings of the perceived (in)competence in Study 1 (n = 531) but observed a considerably smaller nonsignificant effect when proceeding to Study 2 (n = 471), which increased the number of stimuli. The earlier and now repeated replication failure can therefore likely be attributed to an increased variation in stimulus material. We conclude that there is not enough evidence to argue that one social outcome of tears signals a relative lack of competence as the effect seems to depend on the specific stimuli used.

• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich & Schubert, Thomas (2018). Warm and Touching Tears: Tearful Individuals are Perceived as Warmer Because We Assume They Feel Moved and Touched. Cognition & Emotion. ISSN 0269-9931. 32(8), p. 1691–1699. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1430556. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent work investigated the inter-individual functions of emotional tears in depth. In one study (Van de Ven, N., Meijs, M. H. J., & Vingerhoets, A. (2017). What emotional tears convey: Tearful individuals are seen as warmer, but also as less competent. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(1), 146–160. Https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12162) tearful individuals were rated as warmer, and participants expressed more intentions to approach and help such individuals. Simultaneously, tearful individuals were rated as less competent, and participants expressed less intention to work with the depicted targets. While tearful individuals were perceived as sadder, perceived sadness mediated only the effect on competence, but not on warmth. We argue that tearful individuals might be perceived as warm because they are perceived as feeling moved and touched. We ran a pre-registered extended replication of Van de Ven et al. Results replicate the warmth and helping findings, but not the competence and work effects. The increase in warmth ratings was completely mediated by perceiving feeling moved and touched. Possible functions of feeling moved and touched with regard to emotional tears are discussed. This research has been accepted and published in Cognition and Emotion. © 2018 Taylor & Francis

• Seibt, Beate; Schubert, Thomas; Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Zhu, Lei; Arriaga, Patrícia & Simão, Cláudia [Show all 8 contributors for this article] (2017). Kama Muta: Similar emotional responses to touching videos across the US, Norway, China, Israel, and Portugal. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. ISSN 0022-0221. 49(3), p. 418–435. doi: 10.1177/0022022117746240. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Schubert, Thomas; Seibt, Beate & Fiske, Alan Page (2017). Empathic Concern is Part of A More General Communal Emotion. Frontiers in Psychology. 8(MAY). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00723. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Seeing someone in need may evoke a particular kind of closeness that has been conceptualized as sympathy or empathic concern (which is distinct from other empathy constructs). In other contexts, when people suddenly feel close to others, or observe others suddenly feeling closer to each other, this sudden closeness tends to evoke an emotion often labeled in vernacular English as being moved, touched, or heart-warming feelings. Recent theory and empirical work indicates that this is a distinct emotion; the construct is named kama muta. Is empathic concern for people in need simply an expression of the much broader tendency to respond with kama muta to all kinds of situations that afford closeness, such as reunions, kindness, and expressions of love? Across 16 studies sampling 2918 participants, we explored whether empathic concern is associated with kama muta. Meta-analyzing the association between ratings of state being moved and trait empathic concern revealed an effect size of, r(3631) = .35 [95% CI: .29, .41]. In addition, trait empathic concern was also associated with self-reports of the three sensations that have been shown to be reliably indicative of kama muta: weeping, chills, and bodily feelings of warmth. We conclude that empathic concern might actually be a part of the kama muta construct.

• Schubert, Thomas; Seibt, Beate; Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Blomster, Johanna Katarina & Fiske, Alan Page (2017). Being moved is a positive emotion, and emotions should not be equated with their vernacular labels. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. ISSN 0140-525X. 40(e374), p. 39–39. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X17001820. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibt, Beate; Schubert, Thomas; Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich & Fiske, Alan Page (2017). Interpersonal closeness and morality predict feelings of being moved. Emotion. ISSN 1528-3542. 17(3), p. 389–394. doi: 10.1037/emo0000271. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The emotion commonly labeled in English as being moved or touched is widely experienced but only tacitly defined, and has received little systematic attention. Based on a review of conceptualizations from various disciplines, we hypothesize that events appraised as an increase in interpersonal closeness, or as moral acts, when sufficiently intense, elicit a positive emotion typically labeled “being moved,” and characterized by tears, goosebumps, and a feeling of warmth in the chest. We predicted this to be true for events a person participates in, as well as for events they observe. In Study 1, we elicited reports of recent episodes of weeping evoked by something positive, and also weeping because of something negative; we measured emotion terms, bodily sensations, and appraisals in a U.S. sample. We discovered that events of positive tears, rather than negative tears, were associated with self-reported being moved or touched, with goosebumps, with feelings of chest warmth, and with the appraisals of increased closeness and moral acts. These appraisals mediated the difference in being moved between positive and negative events. We further found that appraisal patterns for personally experienced events were similar to the patterns for observed events. Finally, the 2 appraisals were more closely associated with being moved than with other emotion labels. This was corroborated in Study 2 in the U.S. and Norway, where we induced being moved, sadness, anxiety, and happiness through videos and measured these emotions, plus the appraisals and sensations from Study 1. The final version of this research was published in Emotion. © American Psychological Association.

• Fiske, Alan Page; Schubert, Thomas & Seibt, Beate (2017). “Kama muta” or ‘being moved by love’: A bootstrapping approach to the ontology and epistemology of an emotion. In Cassaniti, Julia L. & Menon, Usha (Ed.), Universalism without uniformity: Explorations in mind and culture. University of Chicago Press. ISSN 9780226501680. p. 79–100. doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226501710.001.0001. Full text in Research Archive
• Lu, Lifeng; Schubert, Thomas & Zhu, Lei (2017). The spatial representation of power in children. Cognitive Processing. ISSN 1612-4782. p. 1–11. doi: 10.1007/s10339-017-0814-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Previous evidence demonstrates that power is mentally represented as vertical space by adults. However, little is known about how power is mentally represented in children. The current research examines such representations. The influence of vertical information (motor cues) was tested in both an explicit power evaluation task (judge whether labels refer to powerless or powerful groups) and an incidental task (judge whether labels refer to people or animals). The results showed that when power was explicitly evaluated, vertical motor responses interfered with responding in children and adults, i.e., they responded to words representing powerful groups faster with the up than the down cursor key (and vice versa for powerless groups). However, this interference effect disappeared in the incidental task in children. The findings suggest that children have developed a spatial representation of power before they have been taught power–space associations formally, but that they do not judge power spontaneously. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Cognitive Processing. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0814-9

• Jostmann, Nils B; Lakens, Daniel & Schubert, Thomas (2016). A short history of the weight-importance effect and a recommendation for pre-testing: Commentary on Ebersole et al. (2016). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. ISSN 0022-1031. 67, p. 93–94. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.12.001. Full text in Research Archive
• Toscano, Hugo; Schubert, Thomas; Dotsch, Ron; Falvello, Virginia & Todorov, Alexander (2016). Physical Strength as a Cue to Dominance: A Data-Driven Approach. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. ISSN 0146-1672. 42(12), p. 1603–1616. doi: 10.1177/0146167216666266. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich & Schubert, Thomas (2016). Revisiting and Extending a Response Latency Measure of Inclusion of the Other in the Self. Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology. ISSN 2374-3603. 1(1-3), p. 106–129. doi: 10.1080/23743603.2017.1298356. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although the concept of inclusion of the other in the self (IOS) has been successfully assessed with explicit self-report measures implicit procedures have been neglected in past literature. The present article explores the validity of such an implicit measure by proposing several extensions and adaptions. Based on the me/not-me response latency task originally conceptualized by Aron, Aron, Tudor and Nelson (1991) we addressed methodological problems by proposing changes in material, calculation of indices and implemented the task in an online environment. We also addressed earlier problems with statistical power and proposed a more powerful way of statistical analyses using mixed models. The me/not-me task is based on the idea that higher overlap between self and other traits results in faster response times of characterizing such a trait as descriptive of the self. This relationship should be observed for close others but not for non-close others. In a sample of 339 US American adults we experimentally manipulated the nature of the target (close vs. distant) and participants engaged in the adapted me/not-me paradigm. Results indicated that trait match had a stronger negative effect on response times for participants in the close condition. The effect was also stronger for participants rating the target higher on the IOS self-report scale. We also provided convergent validity of the me/not-me procedure with other constructs ostensibly measuring interpersonal closeness. Future applications and possible limitations are discussed.

• Toscano, Hugo & Schubert, Thomas (2015). Judged and remembered trustworthiness of faces is enhanced by experiencing multisensory synchrony and asynchrony in the right order. PLOS ONE. 10(12). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145664. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This work builds on the enfacement effect. This effect occurs when experiencing a rhythmic stimulation on one’s cheek while seeing someone else’s face being touched in a synchronous way. This typically leads to cognitive and social-cognitive effects similar to self-other merging. In two studies, we demonstrate that this multisensory stimulation can change the evaluation of the other’s face. In the first study, participants judged the stranger’s face and similar faces as being more trustworthy after synchrony, but not after asynchrony. Synchrony interacted with the order of the stroking; hence trustworthiness only changed when the synchronous stimulation occurred before the asynchronous one. In the second study, a synchronous stimulation caused participants to remember the stranger’s face as more trustworthy, but again only when the synchronous stimulation came before the asynchronous one. The results of both studies show that order of stroking creates a context in which multisensory synchrony can affect the trustworthiness of faces.

• Seibt, Beate; Waldzus, Sven; Schubert, Thomas & Brito, Rodrigo (2015). Conservatism is not the missing viewpoint for true diversity. Commentary on Duarte et al. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. ISSN 0140-525X. 38:e157, p. 38–39. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X14001290. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The target article diagnoses a dominance of liberal viewpoints with little evidence, promotes a conservative viewpoint without defining it, and wrongly projects the U.S. liberal-conservative spectrum to the whole field of social psychology. Instead, we propose to anticipate and reduce mixing of theorizing and ideology by using definitions that acknowledge divergence in perspective, and promote representative sampling and observation of the field, as well as dialogical publication.

• Toscano, Hugo; Schubert, Thomas & Sell, Aaron N. (2014). Judgments of dominance from the face track physical strength. Evolutionary Psychology. 12(1), p. 1–18. doi: 10.1177/147470491401200101. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is commonly assumed that judgments of dominance from faces partly rely on implicit judgments of bodily strength. In two studies, we demonstrate such a relation for both computer-generated and natural photos of male faces. We find support when aggregating data across participants, when analyzing with hierarchical models, and also when strength and dominance are judged by different raters. Moreover, we identify common predictors that underlie perceptions of both strength and dominance: brow height, eye length, chin length, and the widths of the nose and mouth. Evolutionary Psychology 12(1): 1-18 epjournal.net/3144 © the author(s)

• Schubert, Thomas; Murteira, Carla; Collins, Elizabeth C. & Lopes, Diniz (2013). ScriptingRT: A Software Library for Collecting Response Latencies in Online Studies of Cognition. PLOS ONE. 8(6). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067769. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  ScriptingRT is a new open source tool to collect response latencies in online studies of human cognition. ScriptingRT studies run as Flash applets in enabled browsers. ScriptingRT provides the building blocks of response latency studies, which are then combined with generic Apache Flex programming. Six studies evaluate the performance of ScriptingRT empirically. Studies 1–3 use specialized hardware to measure variance of response time measurement and stimulus presentation timing. Studies 4–6 implement a Stroop paradigm and run it both online and in the laboratory, comparing ScriptingRT to other response latency software. Altogether, the studies show that Flash programs developed in ScriptingRT show a small lag and an increased variance in response latencies. However, this did not significantly influence measured effects: The Stroop effect was reliably replicated in all studies, and the found effects did not depend on the software used. We conclude that ScriptingRT can be used to test response latency effects online. Copyright: 2013 Schubert et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

• Schubert, Lisa; Schubert, Thomas & Topolinski, Sascha (2013). The effect of spatial elevation on respect depends on merit and medium. Social Psychology. ISSN 1864-9335. 44, p. 147–159. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000134. Full text in Research Archive
• IJzerman, Hans; Karremans, Johan; Thomsen, Lotte & Schubert, Thomas (2013). Caring for sharing: How attachment styles modulate communal cues of physical warmth. Social Psychology. ISSN 1864-9335. 44, p. 160–166. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000142. Full text in Research Archive
• Schubert, Thomas; D'Ausilio, Alessandro & Canto, Rosario (2013). Using Arduino microcontroller boards to measure response latencies. Behavior Research Methods. ISSN 1554-351X. 45, p. 1332–1346. doi: 10.3758/s13428-013-0336-z. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Latencies of buttonpresses are a staple of cognitive science paradigms. Often keyboards are employed to collect buttonpresses, but their imprecision and variability decreases test power and increases the risk of false positives. Response boxes and data acquisition cards are precise, but expensive and inflexible, alternatives. We propose using open-source Arduino microcontroller boards as an inexpensive and flexible alternative. These boards connect to standard experimental software using a USB connection and a virtual serial port, or by emulating a keyboard. In our solution, an Arduino measures response latencies after being signaled the start of a trial, and communicates the latency and response back to the PC over a USB connection. We demonstrated the reliability, robustness, and precision of this communication in six studies. Test measures confirmed that the error added to the measurement had an SD of less than 1 ms. Alternatively, emulation of a keyboard results in similarly precise measurement. The Arduino performs as well as a serial response box, and better than a keyboard. In addition, our setup allows for the flexible integration of other sensors, and even actuators, to extend the cognitive science toolbox. The final publication is available at Springer via http://link.springer.com

• Giessner, Steffen R.; Ryan, Michelle K.; Schubert, Thomas & Quaquebeke, Nils (2011). The Power of Pictures: Vertical Picture Angles in Power Pictures. Media Psychology. ISSN 1521-3269. 14(4), p. 442–464. Full text in Research Archive

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• Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang & Grüning, David J. (2021). Proper understanding of grounded procedures of separation needs a dual inheritance approach. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. ISSN 0140-525X. p. e23–e23. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X20000394. Full text in Research Archive
• Petersen, Evi & Schubert, Thomas Wolfgang (2021). How kama muta connects people to nature? Full text in Research Archive
• Schubert, Thomas & Grüning, David J. (2020). Proper understanding of grounded procedures of separation needs a dual inheritance approach. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. ISSN 0140-525X. 44, p. 51–52. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X20000394. Full text in Research Archive
• Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich & Schubert, Thomas (2019). How to identify and how to conduct research that is informative and reproducible. In Valsiner, Jaan (Eds.), Social Philosophy of Science for the Social Sciences. Springer Nature. ISSN 9783030330989. p. 147–168. Full text in Research Archive
• IJzerman, Hans; Čolić, Marija V.; Hennecke, M.; Hong, Youngki; Hu, Chuan-Peng & Joy-Gaba, Jennifer [Show all 16 contributors for this article] (2017). Does distance from the equator predict self-control? Lessons from the Human Penguin Project. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. ISSN 0140-525X. 40:e86, p. 22–23. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X16001035. Full text in Research Archive

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