Staff

Dr. Nicole Syringa Harth

Contact

IGC building
Wildstraße 1
D-07743 Jena, Germany
For directions click here

e-mail: n.harth@uni-jena.de
Fon: +49 (0) 3641-945190
Fax: +49 (0) 3641-945192

Research Interests

My key interests are linked to understanding the interplay between human emotions, cognition, and behavior in social and political relations. I study these issues at the inter-group and inter-personal level within the context of structural violence (e.g., social inequality), post-conflict reconciliation (e.g. apology), and social dilemmas (e.g., trust game, dictator game). My recent work focuses on dynamic aspects of emotions, starting from the premise that emotional responding is a transaction between subject and environment that is characterized by “flux”, a continuous change.
In one line of work, colleagues (Prof. M.J. Hornsey & F.K. Barlow) and I study how expectations shape emotional responses (e.g., shame, guilt, anger) to rejection and acceptance of gestures of reconciliation. Another line of research examines whether and how social emotions (e.g., pity and sympathy) activate different cognitive concepts of psychological distance by using explicit and implicit measures (implicit association test, lexical decision task).

Related Research Interests:

• Intergroup interaction: divergent perspectives of social reality
• Emotions in social dilemma situations (trust game, dictator game;
  together with Dr. T. Regner, MPI Jena)
• Intergroup contact, especially boundary conditions of [extended] contact

Please contact me if you would like copies of any of my papers, listed below, or any further information about my research.

Education

• Since February 2008: Post-doctoral researcher at the IGC, FSU Jena
• Ph.D. in Psychology (summa cum laude), University of Jena, (2007)
• PhD student, IGC, DFG fellowship, University of Jena (2004-2007)
• Visiting researcher at the University of Sussex, UK (spring 2006)
• Psychology (Diploma), University of Mannheim (1997-2003)

Publications

• Böhm, R., Funke, F., & Harth, N.S. (in press). Same-Race and Same-Gender Voting Preferences and the Role of Perceived Threat in the Democratic Primaries and Caucuses 2008. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP)..
• Kessler, T. & Harth, N.S. (2009). Change in intergroup relations: Psychological processes accompanying, determining, and determined by social change. In S. Otten, T. Kessler, & K. Sassenberg (eds., pp. 243-262), Intergroup relations: The role of motivation and emotion. New York: Psychology Press.
• Harth, N.S., Kessler, T., & Leach, C.W. (2008). Advantaged Group's Emotional Reactions to Intergroup Inequality: The Dynamics of Pride, Guilt, and Sympathy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 115-129.
• Kessler, T., & Harth, N.S. (2008). Die Theorie der Relativen Deprivation. In L.- E. Petersen & B. Six (Eds.), Stereotype, Vorurteile und soziale Diskriminierung. Theorien, Befunde und Interventionen (pp. 249-258). Beltz-Verlag: Weinheim, Basel.
• Harth, N.S. (2007). Social, Sniffy, or Guilty? Advantaged Group's Emotional Reactions to Intergroup Inequality. Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. Published online at: http://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-13816/thesis-bib.Harth.pdf

Under review & in preparation

• Harth, N.S., Hornsey, M.J., & Barlow, F.K. (under review). Intergroup emotions in a state of flux: How expectations shape emotional responses to rejection and acceptance of gestures of reconciliation.
• Barlow, F.K., Harth, N.S., Hornsey, M.J., & Louis, W.R. (under review). Does minority group rejection reduce or increase majority group collective guilt? The impact of group-based rejection on intergroup emotions and attitudes.
• Feddes, A.R., Harth, N.S., Kessler, T., & White, M. (under review). How Could you Be Friends With Them? Boundary Conditions for the Extended Contact Hypothesis.
• Harth, N.S., & Regner, T. (under review). Uncovering the Limits of Guilt in a Repeated Trust Game
  

Scientific Presentations

• Harth, N.S., Hornsey, M., & Barlow, F. (2009). Dynamics of social emotions in response to gestures of acceptance vs. rejection. Paper presented at the meeting of the German Social Psychology section, Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg, September 2-4.
• Harth, N.S. (2009). IntergroupEmotions in a State of Flux:When Gestures of Restitution are Accepted or Rejected by the Disadvantaged. Paper presented at the Medium-sized Meeting on Collective Action and Social Change, Groningen, July 3-6.
• Harth, N.S. (2009). Feeling close & feeling distant: Differentiating sympathy from pity on implicit & explicit measures. Paper presented at the German Meeting of Experimentally Working Psychologists, FSU Jena, Germany, March 29- April 1st.
• Harth, N.S., Hornsey, M., & Barlow, F. (2009). When Guilt Turns Into Anger or Satisfaction: The Malleability of Emotions in Social Interaction. Invited talk, Social Group Meeting, University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom, January 20.
• Harth, N.S. (2008). Towards Intergroup Dynamics: Change in Group-based Emotions as Response to the Out-Group‘s Reaction. Workshop on Intergroup Processes - Positive Behaviour between Social Groups: Processes, Problems and Promises, June 19-23, Oppurg, Germany.
  
• Harth, N.S., Kessler, T., & Leach, C.W. (2006). How Does it Feel? Group-based Pride, Existential Guilt, and Sympathy. Some Feelings of Being Relative Advantaged. Invited talk, lab meeting of the social psychology group, Prof. Yzerbyt, November 10, University Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
  
• Harth, N.S., Feddes, A.R., Kessler, T., & White, M. (2006). Getting To Know Your Group Members Through Their Friends. Invited talk for the Conference on Social Justice: Research, Action and Policy, June 22-25, Long Beach, California, USA.
  
• Harth, N.S. (2006). Stability or Social Change? Group Based Emotions of Advantaged Group Members and Their Consequences. Paper resented at the 2. Conference on Emotions, May 18-20, Louvain, Belgium.
  
• Harth, N.S., Kessler, T., & Leach, C.W. (2005). Persistence or Social Change? Group Based Emotions of Advantaged Groups and their Consequences. Paper resented at the Fachgruppentagung Sozialpsychologie, September 25-28, Jena, Germany

Collaborations

• Project on intergroup relations, apology, & emotions together with Prof. M. Hornsey & F. Barlow (both University of Queensland, Australia)
• Emotions in experimental games together with Dr. Tobias Regner (MPI of Economics, Jena, Germany)
  

Membership in Professional Organizations

• German Society for Psychology (DGPs), Section Social Psychology (FGSP)
• Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)
• Society of the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)

Reviewer for

• Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
• European Journal of Social Psychology
• Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
• Journal of Social Psychology

Last update of this page: October 05 2007 | 10:08:10