Empirische Rechtswissenschaft im Fokus: Dieses Buch bietet einen fundierten Überblick über Stand und Perspektiven interdisziplinärer Rechtswissenschaften. Von Verfassungs-, Europa-, Kartell- und Strafrecht über richterliches Entscheidungsverhalten bis hin zu Fragen von Politikberatung, Arbeitsmärkten und Gemeinschaftsgütern entfalten die Beiträge ein breites thematisches Spektrum. Zugleich zeigen sie, wie Verhaltenswissenschaften, datengetriebene Methoden und Künstliche Intelligenz unser Verständnis des Rechts vertiefen und verändern. Sie zeichnen dabei auch das Wirken von Christoph Engel, Direktor am Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Gemeinschaftsgütern, nach. 

What characterizes individuals who stand up and take action against violations of fundamental moral principles, even in the face of personal risk and adversity? Due to methodological and ethical challenges, we are limited in our understanding of personality dispositions that predict who acts morally courageously in situations of severe wrongdoings and considerable risk. In Germany and Austria, we recruited recipients of public awards for outstanding moral courage (n = 54) and individuals who nominated themselves to have acted morally courageously (n = 48). We contrasted these morally courageous individuals with a demographically matched reference group of people who reported not to have acted morally courageously before (n = 323), and with normative samples of the German population. Results showed three key patterns: First, among the HEXACO personality factors, heightened extraversion consistently distinguished the morally courageous groups from the reference group. Second, membership in the morally courageous groups was predicted by heightened moral attentiveness and anger proneness, and lowered endorsement of loyalty and authority, indicating exceptional moral functioning of the morally courageous. Third, the morally courageous were characterized by diminished risk avoidance and social anxiety, suggesting that they encounter a lower psychological barrier posed by fear of negative social evaluation.

Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) ist unverzichtbar im modernen Marketing und dient zunehmend als strategischer Wettbewerbsvorteil in innovationsgetriebenen Branchen. Das Interesse an generativer KI wächst auch in der Marketinginnovation. Marketer nutzen zunehmend Sprachmodelle (Large Language Models, LLMs) wie ChatGPT, um Kreativität, Geschwindigkeit und Effizienz zu steigern. Die Forschung zur Schnittstelle von generativer KI und Marketing ist bislang fragmentiert und meist auf spezifische Anwendungsfälle fokussiert. Es fehlt ein ganzheitlicher Ansatz, der den Einsatz generativer KI über den gesamten Marketinginnovationsprozess systematisch analysiert. In einem systematischem Literaturüberblick zeigt dieser Beitrag Potenziale und Herausforderungen auf und demonstriert, dass KI in allen Innovationsphasen einsetzbar ist und dabei drei Rolle einnehmen kann: als Unterstützer, als Erweiterung oder als eigenständiger Akteur, mit entscheidendem Einfluss auf Innovationsprozesse.

Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) education has largely emphasized technical skills, while psychological and socio-cognitive dimensions of interaction remain underrepresented. Yet contemporary HRI research increasingly views robots as social actors that shape perception, behavior, and decision-making. To address this gap, this paper introduces the Scientific HRI Didactic Framework (SHRI-DiF), a didactical approach that integrates research-based learning with the 5E cycle (Engage–Explore–Explain–Elaborate–Evaluate). The framework positions students as active researchers who conduct the full empirical process, from identifying research questions to evaluating findings. Social robots serve as epistemic tools and experimental agents to investigate social and psychological constructs such as trust, perceived control, and acceptance. The framework is demonstrated in a 12-week undergraduate seminar in business and media psychology using the Furhat robot for dialog strategies in HRI. Results indicate that authentic HRI research settings foster scientific reasoning, methodological competence, and interdisciplinary thinking, offering a transferable model for research-based higher education.

As generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded and utilized for digital design, it presents both opportunities and risks. One major concern is its potential to facilitate and incorporate deceptive design patterns into computing technologies, which could manipulate or mislead users to their disadvantage. Similar to the concept of precedent-based design, a common approach in design theory that suggests reapplying previous design solutions to similar or identical problems, generative AI can integrate deceptive design patterns included in the training data a model has seen before. Our workshop explores how generative AI suggests and enacts deceptive design patterns in digital design. The goal of the workshop is to explore the ethical challenges of utilizing generative AI models and develop strategies to detect or prevent manipulative practices, thereby creating more transparent and equitable AI-generated experiences.

Deceptive patterns in visual interfaces - subtle nudges that persuade or manipulate users to take a certain action - have been researched extensively. Yet, little is known about how these patterns can be translated to the other human senses and what other forms of deception could be implemented for them. This meet-up aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with an interest in studying multi-sensory manipulative interface design, exploring how deceptive patterns for touch, sound, taste, and smell, but also lesser-known senses such as balance, pain, or interoception, can be created, embedded, and mitigated in and with current and future technologies. By facilitating the discussion of potential opportunities and risks across senses, we want to foster new collaborations to advance the field of responsible multisensory deceptive pattern research. In the long term, we hope to raise awareness of potential threats before they arise so we can better safeguard end users.

This paper explores the association of anthropomorphism and cognitive load with respect to the influence of negative attitudes towards robots. The study consists in a cooperative pick-and-place task, where participants are required to repeatedly and alternatingly put a Lego brick onto one of two trays to be picked up and returned by a robot arm. The task is varied by whether or not participants had to remember an 8-digit number inducing extraneous cognitive load (within-subjects factor). Results show significant correlations of some dimensions of anthropomorphism and perceived cognitive load. However, dividing participants in groups with different negative attitudes towards robots, a significant difference of this association is found. This finding puts prior results on the dependency of anthropomorphism of robots and cognitive load into perspective and more research on the underlying cognitive processes is suggested.

Digital communication has played an increasingly important role in schools around the world, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. For professional communica tion and collaboration in particular, digital tools have provided teachers with the op portunity to collaborate location-independently and to easily exchange information and teaching materials. Hence, this study aimed to explore how teachers communi cate and collaborate digitally by examining differences in the use of instant messag ing and videoconferencing and the attitudes of teachers towards these technologies. Therefore, an online survey was conducted with primary and secondary school teachers from Germany (N = 250, 72.0% female). The analysis showed that mes sengers were used significantly more than videoconferences and that they differed in their usefulness for occasions of communication and collaboration. Structural equation modeling indicated that the self-assessed digital communication compe tence of teachers is both a significant predictor for the behavioral intention to use messengers as well as videoconferences, although the behavioral intention to use messengers in the future was significantly higher than for videoconferences. While a higher threshold to use videoconferences might be a reason for the differences that were identified in this study, further research into the communication and col laboration among teachers is still needed to understand the reasons for the differ ences in use.

KI-Sprachmodelle wie ChatGPT gewinnen an Bedeutung. Zwar liefern sie noch weniger Traffic als Suchmaschinen, doch ihr Einfluss auf die frühen Phasen der Customer Journey steigt. Auch die Abdeckung transaktionaler Journey-Elemente ist nur eine Frage der Zeit.

This study explores a resource-based perspective on subjective wellbeing in educational contexts by introducing the concept of happiness capital. Building on the educational and learning capital approach, we adapted existing measures to assess how personal and environmental resources contribute to students’ wellbeing. In a sample of 1,528 Egyptian secondary school students, perceived happiness capital significantly predicted life satisfaction, positive and negative emotions across all age groups. These findings suggest that the same resource structures supporting learning can foster emotional flourishing. We briefly discuss implications for resource-based models of wellbeing in education and propose directions for future research.