Norbert Schwarz

The big wars of the 20th century have devastated our beautiful cities and left deep wounds in our people that are visible in the population pyramid. However, it was not before the onset of the Battle of the Sexes in the 1970ies that this population pyramid became permanently disfigured. It is as if there is a war against humanity, beauty, nature, love and life that sucks souls from us humans and the world we live in. Time to end this war and to start rebuilding our people.

The big wars of the 20th century have devastated our beautiful cities and left deep wounds in our people that are visible in the population pyramid. However, it was not before the onset of the Battle of the Sexes in the 1970ies that this population pyramid became permanently disfigured. It is as if there is a war against humanity, beauty, nature, love and life that sucks souls from us humans and the world we live in. Time to end this war and to start rebuilding our people.

Es ist als ob ein Krieg gegen die Menschheit, die Sch nheit, die Natur, die Liebe und das Leben stattfindet. Die beiden gro en hei en Kriege des 20. Jahrhunderts haben schwere Zerst rungen mit sich gebracht unter anderem durch die Zerst rungen der Seelenarchitektur alter St dte. Immerhin wurden die Geburtendefizite der hei en Kriege nach Einstellung der Kampfhandlung bald wieder aufgeholt. Erst der Krieg der Geschlechter der seit Anfang der 1970er Jahre anh lt hat zu anhaltenden Verst mmelungen an der Bev lkerungspyramide gef hrt.

Es ist als ob ein Krieg gegen die Menschheit, die Sch nheit, die Natur, die Liebe und das Leben stattfindet. Die beiden gro en hei en Kriege des 20. Jahrhunderts haben schwere Zerst rungen mit sich gebracht unter anderem durch die Zerst rungen der Seelenarchitektur alter St dte. Immerhin wurden die Geburtendefizite der hei en Kriege nach Einstellung der Kampfhandlung bald wieder aufgeholt. Erst der Krieg der Geschlechter der seit Anfang der 1970er Jahre anh lt hat zu anhaltenden Verst mmelungen an der Bev lkerungspyramide gef hrt.

During the nearly 4 billion years-old history of life on earth, the mechanisms of evolution were linked to natural selection and organic life. By creating artificial intelligence, humans could actually replace natural selection by intelligent design. The looming transhumanism, the resurrecting monster of eugenics and the constitution of the interface between the world of humans and the world of machines must not be surrendered to the fantasies of omnipotence of super-rich and mighty persons.

During the nearly 4 billion years-old history of life on earth, the mechanisms of evolution were linked to natural selection and organic life. By creating artificial intelligence, humans could actually replace natural selection by intelligent design. The looming transhumanism, the resurrecting monster of eugenics and the constitution of the interface between the world of humans and the world of machines must not be surrendered to the fantasies of omnipotence of super-rich and mighty persons.

Psychological research into human cognition and judgment reveals a wide range of biases and shortcomings. Whether we form impressions of other people, recall episodes from memory, report our attitudes in an opinion poll, or make important decisions, we often get it wrong. The errors made are not trivial and often seem to violate common sense and basic logic. A closer look at the underlying processes, however, suggests that many of the well known fallacies do not necessarily reflect inherent shortcomings of human judgment. Rather, they partially reflect that research participants bring the tacit assumptions that govern the conduct of conversation in daily life to the research situation. According to these assumptions, communicated information comes with a guarantee of relevance and listeners are entitled to assume that the speaker tries to be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear. Moreover, listeners interpret the speakers' utterances on the assumption that they are trying to live up to these ideals. This book introduces social science researchers to the "logic of conversation" developed by Paul Grice, a philosopher of language, who proposed the cooperative principle and a set of maxims on which conversationalists implicitly rely. The author applies this framework to a wide range of topics, including research on person perception, decision making, and the emergence of context effects in attitude measurement and public opinion research. Experimental studies reveal that the biases generally seen in such research are, in part, a function of violations of Gricean conversational norms. The author discusses implications for the design of experiments and questionnaires and addresses the socially contextualized nature of human judgment.

In this important book, the authors explore what answers mean in relation to how people understand the world around them and communicate with one another. They offer practical and theoretical insights that will prove invaluable when developing questionnaires.

Psychological research into human cognition and judgment reveals a wide range of biases and shortcomings. Whether we form impressions of other people, recall episodes from memory, report our attitudes in an opinion poll, or make important decisions, we often get it wrong. The errors made are not trivial and often seem to violate common sense and basic logic. A closer look at the underlying processes, however, suggests that many of the well known fallacies do not necessarily reflect inherent shortcomings of human judgment. Rather, they partially reflect that research participants bring the tacit assumptions that govern the conduct of conversation in daily life to the research situation. According to these assumptions, communicated information comes with a guarantee of relevance and listeners are entitled to assume that the speaker tries to be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear. Moreover, listeners interpret the speakers' utterances on the assumption that they are trying to live up to these ideals. This book introduces social science researchers to the "logic of conversation" developed by Paul Grice, a philosopher of language, who proposed the cooperative principle and a set of maxims on which conversationalists implicitly rely. The author applies this framework to a wide range of topics, including research on person perception, decision making, and the emergence of context effects in attitude measurement and public opinion research. Experimental studies reveal that the biases generally seen in such research are, in part, a function of violations of Gricean conversational norms. The author discusses implications for the design of experiments and questionnaires and addresses the socially contextualized nature of human judgment.

Daß Stimmungsschwankungen die Beurteilungen des eigenen Lebens beeinflussen können, ist eine Alltagserfahrung. Eine fundierte Analyse zur Rolle emotionaler Zustände in der Urteilsbildung liegt jetzt vor: Der Autor hat verschiedene Ansätze zur Wechselwirkung von Emotion und Kognition gegenübergestellt und in Labor- sowie Feldexperimenten getestet. Die Befunde haben gezeigt, daß Personen bei der Beurteilung ihrer Lebenszufriedenheit ihre momentane Stimmung als Information berücksichtigen und in der gleichen Weise wie eine andere, externe Information verarbeiten. Aus diesem Ergebnis leitet sich ein theoretischer Ansatz für die Wechselwirkung von Kognition und Emotion ab, der die informative Funktion emotionaler Zustände hervorhebt und in die Entwicklung eines Urteilsmodells zum subjektiven Wohlbefinden eingeht. Dieser Band sollte in der Bibliothek von Psychologen, Soziologen und Meinungsforschern stehen.