Petra Nieken has co-authored a new study, “Where Do I Belong? Prospective Relative Performance Information under High- and Low-Performing Reference Groups,” with Anna Ressi (WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management), published in The Accounting Review. The paper explores how relative performance information shapes motivation and behavior when employees are compared to different reference groups.

Key insights from the study:

- People adjust performance to fit group norms

- Feeling out of place can lower motivation

- Choosing your peer group can drive ambition

Find the full study here!

Introduction to Lab²: A MetaLab for Better Science

Abstract: The replicability crisis highlights the need for more transparent and robust research practices. Lab² (Lab-Square) is a collaborative initiative using meta-scientific approaches to improve research credibility. Through large-scale projects like Many-Labs, Many-Designs, and Many-Analysts, we assess the generalizability of findings across populations, methods, and analytical approaches.
Lab² also investigates how research decisions are made, examining the role of beliefs, biases, and norms in shaping scientific practices. Our studies include multi-analyst projects using SOEP data, large-scale survey experiments, and empirical tests of methodological rigor. By integrating decision science into meta-research, we aim to open the “black box” of scientific inference.
This talk will introduce Lab²’s approach, ongoing projects, and its role in fostering transparency, reducing publication bias, and strengthening the reliability of scientific findings.

Levent Neyse | IZA - Institute of Labor Economics

As part of the Girls’ Day 2025, the workshop ”App Development Made Easy” provided insights into the emerging field of processing and analyzing biosignals captured by sensors from mainstream mobile apps to recognize emotions and design emotion-adaptive apps for daily life of students. The workshop was offered by PhD students from the KIT Institute for Information Systems (WIN) https://www.win.kit.edu). The workshop took place in the Karlsruher Decision And Design Laboratory (kd2lab) (https://www.kd2lab.kit.edu) in tight collaboration with the DFG-funded hashtag#KD2School (https://kd2school.info) and the KIT Future Field 3 „Hybrid Adaptive Systems" (https://lnkd.in/eiy2-ZF8).

Further information is available here: https://lnkd.in/eySCBp67

Social-cue as Nudge to Deter Workplace Sabotage

As part of the "Decision & Design" speaker series organized by Future Field III, Prof. Dr. Subhasish Modak Chowdhury from University of Sheffield (UK) gave a presentation on his recent research on March 18th at 11.30 AM. The lecture took place at KD2Lab and was open to the public. Further information is available at the following link: https://haps.kd2lab.kit.edu/64_178.php

Prof. Maedche gave a talk on February 18th, 2025 at the  University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC) on Biosignal-Adaptive Systems with a particular focus on supporting remote meetings.    Remote meetings as a modern way of work are widespread due to distributed team setups.  While there are various benefits in terms of time savings, reduced travel costs and emissions, there are also negative outcomes such as a lack of engagement or increased fatigue. Biosignal-adaptive systems that dynamically adapt to users represent a promising solution to improve remote meetings.  As part of this talk, Prof. Maedche presented selected results from research about this exciting topic carried out within the DFG-funded graduate school KD2School and the KIT Future Field III project on Hybrid Adaptive Systems.

This week, we had the pleasure of welcoming the team from the Cognitive Systems Engineering Lab (Prof. Taro KANNO, Yingting CHEN) of the University of Tokyo back to KIT—nearly half a year after their last visit. During their stay, we held several meetings to discuss ongoing research projects and explore new collaboration opportunities. In addition to these discussions, we conducted design workshops on the future of team work and AI as part of our collaborative study, further strengthening our exchange in the fields of human-centered and adaptive systems. Stay tuned for the results!

The aim of the Health Knowledge Foundation is to encourage people to become co-creators of their health. To this end, the foundation provides information on health topics. In an interview, Prof. Mädche provides insights on current research at the human-centered systems lab on personalization and adaptive systems. He emphasizes the importance of personalization in the context of health information that is delivered through information systems. The interview is available in the current brochure “kompetent”

The KD2School Adaptive Systems Talks are an open-to-the-public Christmas event hosted by the KD2School. This year’s topic is:

Biosignals to Bytes – Human Cognition Meets AI Evolution

Featuring talks from Prof. Kopp (University of Bielefeld), Prof. Wilson (University of Nottingham), and Dr. Debus (KIT), a panel discussion, poster slam, and interactive demonstrations.

On July 17, the Dialog Day took place at KIT. It was dedicated to the topic of “Openness and transparency in economics and management” and offered a varied program with numerous opportunities for exchange. Among other things, the participants were able to gain exciting insights into current research projects of our scientific staff. As part of the Young Researcher Talks, Michelle Hörrmann presented the new “Open Science for Human Subjects Research” portal, which will in the future include an Open Science Onboarding Course for researchers at KIT.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), , a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), has published a new article titled “Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs” co-authored by Petra Nieken. The study follows a rigor and innovative open science paradigm: Independent research teams were invited to contribute experimental designs to a crowd-sourced project. In a large-scale online data collection, 18,123 experimental participants were randomly allocated to 45 randomly selected experimental designs out of 95 submitted designs.