Research
CURRENT PROJECTS (Updated October 2022)
The role of minority consistency in over-time convention change
My final dissertation project, where I examine whether consistent minorities are better at converting people to their position than inconsistent minorities. Using a large-scale group experimental study, I find that minority consistency acts as a double-edged sword: a consistent minority is perceived as more confident, which in turn increases the likelihood of convention change occurring, but also as more unlikely to budge, which leads to defensive responses and decreases the likelihood of convention change occurring.
Social Convention Game: An experimental paradigm for studying social change
The second dissertation project, in which I develop a new experimental paradigm aimed at replicating minority-instigated social change in a lab setting. Through this, I attempt to provide researchers with a tool that enables them to study the role of different psychological factors in widespread change within a group, thus allowing for an extension of findings that have so far only been established on an individual level without an over-time component.
The role of involvement and hypocrisy in environmental self-silencing
A side project in collaboration with Tabea Hoffmann, within which we examine why people often refuse to discuss issues related to environmental sustainability. We hypothesise that likely reasons for this failure might lie in the fear of being outed as an environmental hypocrite and in the fear to offend others who have engaged in a given unsustainable behaviour in the past. We are currently running the first empirical pilot studies in the project.
PUBLICATIONS
Ye, M., Zino, L., Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Risselada, H., Fennis, B. M., & Cao, M. (2021). Collective patterns of social diffusion are shaped by individual inertia and trend-seeking. Nature Communications, 12(5698), 1-12.
Evans, A., Sleegers, W., & Mlakar, Ž. (2020). Individual differences in receptivity to scientific bullshit. Judgment and Decision Making, 15(3), 401-412.
CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES
Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Risselada, H., & Fennis, B. M. (2022, September 13-14). The double-edged role of minority consistency in convention change [Poster session]. Science for Responsible Behaviour Workshop, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Mlakar, Ž. (2022, September 5-7). Symposium convenor: Psychological processes that initiate and sustain (collective) prosocial change, BPS Social Psychology Section Annual Conference 2022, London, United Kingdom.
Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Risselada, H., & Fennis, B. M. (2022, September 5-7). The Social Convention Game: An experimental paradigm bridging individual psychological motivations and societal convention change [Conference presentation]. BPS Social Psychology Section Annual Conference 2022, London, United Kingdom.
Zino, L. Ye, M.,, Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Risselada, H., Fennis, B. M., & Cao, M. (2022, February 8-11). Incentivizing social diffusion on networks using a novel game-theoretic model [Conference presentation]. NetSciX 2022 Conference, Porto, Portugal.
Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Fennis, B. M., Risselada, H. (2021, February 9-13). Repetition legitimizes: Consistent behavior as a signal of reliability, trustworthiness, and competence [Poster session]. SPSP 2021 Convention, Online.
Ye, M., Zino, L., Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Risselada, H., Fennis, B. M., & Cao, M. (2020, September 21-25). Understanding and Modeling Cognitive Mechanisms in Social Diffusion [Poster session]. NetSci 2020 Conference, Online.
Risselada, H., Bolderdijk, J. W., Mlakar, Z., Fennis, B. M., Ye, M., & Zino, L. (2020, May). Releasing the brake: How disinhibition frees people and facilitates innovation diffusion. Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy, 49th. (Conference cancelled)
Mlakar, Ž., Bolderdijk, J. W., Fennis, B. M., Risselada, H., Ye, M., & Zino, L. (2020, February 27-29). Releasing the brake: How disinhibition frees people and facilitates social change [Poster session]. SPSP 2020 Convention: GPIR Preconference, New Orleans, LA, United States.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Participation in an online expert panel (Online - 2022, October 11): How can we talk about reducing meat consumption? Challenges & strategies.
Presentation at an Environmental Psychology Research Group Meeting (University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands – 2022, August 30): The role of minority consistency in over-time convention change.
Presentation at the SOM PhD Conference 2022 (University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands - 2022, June 21): Consistent behaviour as a strategy for obtaining cooperation.
Presentation at the Groningen Invitational Research Camp 2022 (University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands - 2022, March 31): Consistent behaviour as a functionally adaptive mechanism.
Presentation at the SOM PhD Conference 2021 (University of Groningen, Online - 2021, June 8): Modelling social convention change: A new experimental and ABM paradigm.
Presentation at an Environment Transport and Sustainability Research Group Meeting (University of Bath, Online - 2020, December 8): The role of majority’s face-saving concerns in social change.
Presentation at the CoRe Frontiers Research Camp (ISM University of Management and Economics, Vilnius, Lithuania - 2019, September 4): The Bright Side of Releasing the Brake: Does Online Disinhibition Foster Sustainable Consumer Choices?