Biographical Sketch

Jens Förster attended highschool at Lübbecke/Westfalia, majoring in German and French Literature, Biology, and Religious Sciences. Afterwards he did a civil service at a youth hostel for 2 years, followed by 6 months of factory work in the metal industry. In 1986 he attended Trier University where he obtained a Diploma in Psychology (1992) and his Dr. rer. nat. (1994). His advisor was Fritz Strack. He also studied German Literature, Linguistic Data Processing, and Philosophy in Trier, and Opera and Performing Arts in Saarbrücken and received his “Vordiploma” (≈ BA) in 1991 and 1994. 1996-1998 he spent two years at Columbia University, New York, as a post doc where his advisor was Tory E. Higgins. He also taught at the Newschool for Social Research, New York. In 2000, he received his habilitation at Würzburg University. Before moving to Amsterdam, he held positions at the Universities of Trier, Würzburg, and Duisburg and at Jacobs University, formerly known as International University Bremen. He is author or co author of more than eighty book chapters or articles on topics including embodiment, metacognition, stereotypes, social judgments, mood, and self regulation. He serves or has served on a variety of boards of leading journals in social psychology, such as British Journal of Social Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, European Review of Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Sections 1 and 2), Social Cognition, Social Psychology, and Self and Identity. 2003-2005 he was elected speaker of the German Social Psychology Association. Since 2008 he is the scientific director of the Kurt Lewin Institute.

Research Interests

Jens Förster is interested in examining basic principles of motivation and information processing and its implications for: stereotypes and prejudice; accessibility of thoughts and goals; approach and avoidance motivation; risk perception and behavior; creative and analytic thinking; self regulation and self control; novelty; time construal; thinking styles; meta cognition; memory; decision making; aggression; consumer behavior; organizational psychology; speed/accuracy tradeoffs. Current research focuses on situational factors influencing creativity; the way novel information is processed; how global versus local processing styles relate to higher order mental processes such as creativity and comparisons; how goals are represented in memory and what makes them different from other mental concepts and processes; when distance to the goal improves motivation, and how bodily feedback influences information processing.

Sample publications

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS  BY THEORIES/TOPICS (for full list see Publications). Listed NOT by importance.

1. Embodiment (Bodily Feedback – Body Mind Interactions)

Förster, J., & Strack, F. (1996). Influence of overt head movements on memory for valenced words: A case of conceptual-motor compatibility . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 421-430.

Förster, J., & Stepper, S. (2000). Compatibility between approach/ avoidance stimulation and valenced information determines residual attention during the process of encoding . European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 853-871.

Friedman, R., & Förster, J. (2000). The effects of approach and avoidance motor actions on the elements of creative insight . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 477-492.

Förster, J. (2003). The influence of approach and avoidance motor actions on food intake . European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 339-350

Förster, J., & Friedman, R. (2008). Expression entails anticipation: Towards a self-regulatory model of bodily feedback effects. In G. Semin & E. Smith, Embodied Grounding (pp. 289-307). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.  

Friedman, R., & Förster, J. (2008). Activation and measurement of motivational states. In A. Elliott (Ed.), Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation (pp. 235-246). Mawah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

2. GLOMO: The Global Local Model of Assimilation/Contrast Effects in Social Judgments

Förster, J., Liberman, N., & Kuschel, S. (2008). The effect of global versus local processing styles on assimilation versus contrast in social judgment . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 579-599.

3. Goal Gradients

Liberman, N., & Förster, J. (2008). Expectancy, value and psychological distance: A new look at goal gradients. Social Cognition, 26, 515-533.

4. Knowledge Activation – Priming – Automatic Goals – Semantic Priming – Procedural Priming

Förster, J., & Liberman, N. (2007). Knowledge activation. A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social Psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed.). New York : Guilford .

Förster, J., Liberman, N., & Friedman, R. (2007). Seven principles of goal activation: A systematic approach to distinguishing goal priming from priming of non-goal constructs . Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 211-233.

Förster, J., Liberman, N., & Higgins, E.T. (2005). Accessibility from active and fulfilled goals . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 220-239.

5. Contextual Creativity

Förster, J., Friedman, R., Özelsel, A., & Denzler, M. (2006). Enactment of approach and avoidance behavior influences the scope of perceptual and conceptual attention . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 133-146.

Förster, J., Friedman, R., Butterbach, E.M., & Sassenberg, K. (2005). Automatic effects of deviancy cues on creative cognition . European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 345-360.

Friedman, R., Fishbach, A., Förster, J., & Werth, L. (2003). Attentional priming effects on creativity . Creativity Research Journal, 15, 277-286.

Förster, J., Friedman, R., & Liberman, N. (2004). Temporal construal effects on abstract and concrete thinking: Consequences for insight and creative cognition . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 177-189.

6. IFDD: Inferences from Experienced Difficulty – Dissonance Reduction

Liberman, N., & Förster, J. (2006). Inferences from decision difficulty . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 290-302.

7. Regulatory Focus Theory:

Förster, J., Higgins, E.T., & Idson, L.C. (1998). Approach and avoidance strength during goal attainment: Regulatory focus and the ”goal looms larger” effect . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1115-1131.

Förster, J., Higgins, E.T., & Taylor Bianco, A. (2003). Speed/accuracy in task performance: Build-in trade-off or separate strategic concerns? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 90 (1), 148-164.

Förster, J., & Higgins, E.T. (2005). How global vs. local processing fits regulatory focus . Psychological Science, 16, 631-636.

Förster, J., Grant, H., Idson, L.C., & Higgins, E.T. (2001). Success/failure feedback, expectancies, and approach/avoidance motivation: How regulatory focus moderates classic relations . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37 (3), 253-260.

Friedman, R., & Förster, J. (2001). The effects of promotion and prevention cues on creativity . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1001-1013.

8. MIMO: Motivational Inference Model of Thought Suppression

Förster, J., & Liberman, N. (2004). A motivational model of post-suppressional rebound . European Review of Social Psychology, 15, 1-32.

Förster, J., & Liberman, N. (2001). The role of attribution of motivation in producing postsuppressional rebound . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 377-390 .

Liberman, N., & Förster, J. (2000). Expression after suppression: A motivational explanation of post-suppressional rebound . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 190-203.

9. Alcohol and Sexual Attraction

Friedman, R., McCarthy, D. M., Förster, J., & Denzler, M. (2005). Automatic effects of alcohol cues on sexual attraction . Addiction, 100, 672-681.

10. Metacognitive Influences on Memory

Strack, F., & Förster, J. (1995). Reporting recollective experiences: Direct access to memory systems? Psychological Science, 6, 352-358.

Strack, F., & Förster, J. (1998). Self-reflection and recognition: The role of metacognitive knowledge in the attribution of recollective experience . Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 111-123.

Förster, J., Friedman, R., & Liberman, N. (2004). Temporal construal effects on abstract and concrete thinking: Consequences for insight and creative cognition . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 177-189.

11. Stereotypes as Theories about the World

Förster, J., Higgins, E.T., & Strack, F. (2000). When stereotype disconfirmation is personal threat: How prejudice and prevention focus moderates incongruency effects. Social Cognition, 18, 178-197.

Förster, J., Higgins, E.T., & Werth, L. (2004). How threat from stereotype disconfirmation triggers self-defense . Social Cognition, 22, 54-74.

12. Stereotype Threat

Seibt, B., & Förster, J. (2004). Stereotype threat and performance: How self-stereotypes influence processing by inducing regulatory foci . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 38 - 56.

*************************************************************

___ 2009; in press (please ask for a copy)  

Books and Book Chapters and Miscellaneous

Förster, J., Liberman, N., & Friedman, R. (2009). What do we prime? On distinguishing between semantic priming, procedural and goal priming. In E. Morsella , J. Bargh, & P. Gollwitzer (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Human Action (pp. 173- 193). New York : Oxford University Press.

Förster, J., & Denzler, M. (2009). Die Theorie des regulatorischen Fokus [Regulatory focus theory]. In V. Brandstätter, & J. Otto (Hrsg.), Handbuch der Psychologie: Motivation und Emotion (pp. 189-196). Berlin : Hogrefe.

Förster, J., & Denzler, M., (2009). A social-cognitive perspective on automatic self-regulation: The relevance of goals in the information-processing sequence. In J. Forgas, & A. Kruglanski (Series Eds.), F. Strack & J. Förster (Vol. Eds.), Frontiers of social psychology: Vol. 7. Social cognition (pp. 245-268) . Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Förster, J. (2009). The unconscious city: How expectancies about creative milieus influence creative performance. In J. Funke, P. Meusburger, & E. Wunder (Eds.), Milieus of Creativity (pp. 219-234). Dordrecht: Springer.

Förster, J., & Werth, L. (2009). Regulatory focus: Classic findings and new directions. In Moskowitz, G., & Grant, H. (Eds.), The Psychology of Goals. (pp. 392-420). New York : Guilford .

Förster, J., & Liberman, N. (2009). Goal gradients: Challenges to a basic principle of motivation. To appear in J. Forgas, R. Baumeister, & D. Tice, The Psychology of Self Regulation. The Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology.

Förster, J. (in press). Die Sozialpsychologie des Schubladendenkens: Vorurteile, Stereotype und Diskriminierung. In Stereotype in Arbeit, Bildung und Medien: Herausforderungen für Gleichstellungspolitik (Arbeitstitel). Kleine-Verlag.

Förster, J. (2009). Wie die Welt über eine schwarze Professorin spricht, die ein schlechtes Gedicht über Obama schrieb. In Beelmann, A., & Jonas, K. (Eds.). Diskriminierung und Toleranz (pp. 13-17). Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Liberman, N. & Förster, J. (in press). Estimates of spatial distance: A construal level theory perspective. In A. Maass, & T. W. Schubert (Eds). Spatial dimensions of social cognition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Denzler, M., Markel, P., & Förster, J. (in press). On the dark and bright sides to vengeance. In H. Aardes & A. van Baalen (Eds.), Findings on elasticity. Baden , Switzerland : Lars Müller.

Strack, F., & Förster, J. (2009). Social Cognition. In J. Forgas, & A. Kruglanski (Series Editors), Frontiers of Social Psychology, Vol. 7. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Peer Reviewed

 

Verwijzing
Verwijzing
Verwijzing
Verwijzing