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Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study

Since the early Gestaltists there has been a strong interest in the question of how problem solvers get stuck in a mental impasse. A key idea is that the repeated activation of a successful strategy from the past results in a mental set (‘Einstellung’) which determines and constrains the option spac...

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Autores principales: Öllinger, Michael, Meissner, Karin, von Müller, Albrecht, Collado Seidel, Carlos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5650694/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29085316
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01761
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author Öllinger, Michael
Meissner, Karin
von Müller, Albrecht
Collado Seidel, Carlos
author_facet Öllinger, Michael
Meissner, Karin
von Müller, Albrecht
Collado Seidel, Carlos
author_sort Öllinger, Michael
collection PubMed
description Since the early Gestaltists there has been a strong interest in the question of how problem solvers get stuck in a mental impasse. A key idea is that the repeated activation of a successful strategy from the past results in a mental set (‘Einstellung’) which determines and constrains the option space to solve a problem. We propose that this phenomenon, which mostly was tested by fairly restricted experiments in the lab, could also be applied to more complex problem constellations and naturalistic decision making. We aim at scrutinizing and reconstructing how a mental set determines the misinterpretation of facts in the field of political decision making and leads in consequence to wrong expectations and an ill-defined problem representation. We will exemplify this psychological mechanism considering a historical example, namely the unexpected stabilization of the Franco regime at the end of World War II and its survival thereafter. A specific focus will be drawn to the significant observation that erroneous expectations were taken as the basis for decisions. This is congruent with the notion that in case of discrepancy between preconceived notions and new information, the former prevails over the new findings. Based on these findings, we suggest a theoretical model for expectation violation in political decision making and develop novel approaches for cognitive empirical research on the mechanisms of expectation violation and its maintenance in political decision making processes.
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spelling pubmed-56506942017-10-30 Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study Öllinger, Michael Meissner, Karin von Müller, Albrecht Collado Seidel, Carlos Front Psychol Psychology Since the early Gestaltists there has been a strong interest in the question of how problem solvers get stuck in a mental impasse. A key idea is that the repeated activation of a successful strategy from the past results in a mental set (‘Einstellung’) which determines and constrains the option space to solve a problem. We propose that this phenomenon, which mostly was tested by fairly restricted experiments in the lab, could also be applied to more complex problem constellations and naturalistic decision making. We aim at scrutinizing and reconstructing how a mental set determines the misinterpretation of facts in the field of political decision making and leads in consequence to wrong expectations and an ill-defined problem representation. We will exemplify this psychological mechanism considering a historical example, namely the unexpected stabilization of the Franco regime at the end of World War II and its survival thereafter. A specific focus will be drawn to the significant observation that erroneous expectations were taken as the basis for decisions. This is congruent with the notion that in case of discrepancy between preconceived notions and new information, the former prevails over the new findings. Based on these findings, we suggest a theoretical model for expectation violation in political decision making and develop novel approaches for cognitive empirical research on the mechanisms of expectation violation and its maintenance in political decision making processes. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC5650694/ /pubmed/29085316 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01761 Text en Copyright © 2017 Öllinger, Meissner, von Müller and Collado Seidel. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Öllinger, Michael
Meissner, Karin
von Müller, Albrecht
Collado Seidel, Carlos
Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study
title Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study
title_full Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study
title_fullStr Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study
title_full_unstemmed Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study
title_short Expectation Violation in Political Decision Making: A Psychological Case Study
title_sort expectation violation in political decision making: a psychological case study
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5650694/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29085316
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01761
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