Filter bubbles and echo chambers have both been linked recently by commentators to rapid societal changes such as Brexit and the polarization of the US American society in the course of Donald Trump's election campaign. We hypothesize that information filtering processes take place on the individual, the social, and the technological levels (triple‐filter‐bubble framework). We constructed an agent‐based modelling (ABM) and analysed twelve different information filtering scenarios to answer the question under which circumstances social media and recommender algorithms contribute to fragmentation of modern society into distinct echo chambers. Simulations show that, even without any social or technological filters, echo chambers emerge as a consequence of cognitive mechanisms, such as confirmation bias, under conditions of central information propagation through channels reaching a large part of the population. When social and technological filtering mechanisms are added to the model, polarization of society into even more distinct and less interconnected echo chambers is observed. Merits and limits of the theoretical framework, and more generally of studying complex social phenomena using ABM, are discussed. Directions for future research such as ways of comparing our simulations with actual empirical data and possible measures against societal fragmentation on the three different levels are suggested.

The present research investigated the influence of group-related evaluative associations on the process of impression formation. In particular, we expected the impact of a target's category membership on the construal of ambiguous behaviour to be moderated by perceivers' evaluative associations related to the target category. Associative strength was further expected to have an indirect effect on dispositional inference, mediated by its impact on behaviour identification. Results support both of these assumptions. Moreover, the influence of evaluative associations on impression formation was not moderated by perceivers' motivation to control prejudiced reactions. Rather, motivation to control moderated only the relation between evaluative associations and the explicit endorsement of prejudiced beliefs about the target group in general, such that explicit prejudice endorsement was correlated with evaluative associations only for perceivers low, but not for those high in motivation to control. Implications for prejudice control are discussed.

Three studies examined the effect of nouns and adjectives for designations of nationality on intergroup bias. In Study 1, participants (N = 237) evaluated group artifacts whose authors' nationality was labeled with nouns or adjectives. Use of nouns enhanced ingroup favoritism, manifested as a preference of the in-group artifact. Study 2 (N = 431) tested the effect of nouns and adjectives on attitudes toward the in-group and outgroup focusing on the moderating role of in-group identification. Use of nouns led to a stronger relative preference of the in-group, pronounced especially in low identified group members. Study 3 (N = 979) examined the effect of nouns and adjectives in a more applied survey setting. Intergroup bias concerning material restitution for confiscated property was stronger when the ethnicity of the former owners was labeled with nouns. The article emphasizes that subtle variation in language use has a consistent impact on intergroup evaluation.

The impact of message abstractness on recipients is controversial. Research on person perception suggests that abstract messages are more influential, whereas research on communication and its outcomes suggests that concrete, vivid communication has greater impact. It was predicted that the latter also applies to the domain of person perception if the message contains unexpected (i.e., stereotype inconsistent) information. This prediction was tested experimentally. It was found that a message about a target person with unexpected content exerts more influence when it is concrete than when it is abstract. This effect generalized across different sources of communication (mass media and interpersonal communication). In line with earlier findings, messages from the media had a somewhat stronger effect than interpersonal communication. Implications for optimal message composition for the communication of knowledge about people are discussed.

Migration causes permanent processes of acculturation involving migrants but also members of mainstream society. A longitudinal field study with 70 German majority members investigated how their acculturation goals causally related to their attitudes and behaviours towards migrants. We distinguished acculturation goals concerning the migrants' culture(s) (what migrants should do) and acculturation goals concerning the usually neglected own changing mainstream culture. Both were conceived along the two dimensions of 'culture maintenance' and 'culture adoption'. Cross-sectionally we found many strong links between acculturation goals and attitudes and behaviours towards migrants, only some of which held longitudinally. As hypothesized there was no clear one-sided causal direction. As many causal links lead from acculturation goals to attitudes and behaviours, as in the opposite direction. Majority members' German culture acculturation goals proved especially valuable, because they determined attitudes and behaviour towards migrants most strongly.