Norbert Schwarz
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Norbert Schwarz is Provost Professor in the Department of Psychology and the
USC Marshall School of Business The USC Marshall School of Business is the business school of the University of Southern California. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In 1997 the school was renamed following a $35 million donation fr ...
at the
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
and a co-director of the USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center.


Education

He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the
University of Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public university, public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Aca ...
, Germany (1980) and a
habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
in psychology from the
University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...
, Germany (1986).


Academic career

Schwarz taught at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1992 and served as Scientific Director of ZUMA, now GESIS, an interdisciplinary social science research center (1987–1992). From 1993 to 2013, he worked at the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
, Ann Arbor, where he held appointments as the
Charles Horton Cooley Charles Horton Cooley (August 17, 1864 – May 7, 1929) was an American sociologist. He was the son of Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M. Cooley. He studied and went on to teach economics and sociology at the University of Michigan. He wa ...
Collegiate Professor of Psychology in the
Social Psychology Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...
program, Professor of Marketing at the
Ross School of Business The University of Michigan Ross School of Business (branded as Michigan Ross) is the business school of the University of Michigan, a Public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The school was originally established ...
, Research Professor in the Program in Survey Methodology, and Research Professor at the
Institute for Social Research Institute for Social Research may refer to: * Norwegian Institute for Social Research, a private research institute in Oslo, Norway * University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, a research institute in Frankfurt, Germany * University of ...
. A bibliometric analysis lists him among the 0.1% most frequently cited scientists across all fields of science in the
Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...
database, 1997-2017.


Research

A core theme of his work is that people do not have stable, coherent and readily accessible attitudes that can be reliably measured through self-report. Instead, opinions are constructed on the spot and recent, contextual factors exert a disproportionate influence on judgments. These influences include feelings (such as moods, emotions, and metacognitive experiences), inferences about the meaning implicit in questions, and whether feelings and thoughts are used to form a representation of the target of judgment or the standard against which it is compared.


Feelings as information

Norbert Schwarz proposed the "feelings-as-information" hypothesis, an influential explanation for the cognitive consequences of affect. According to this perspective, when people make judgments about a target, they rely upon their feelings as diagnostic information about the target of judgment. Although this generally produces accurate responses, people sometimes make mistakes about the source of this information. This hypothesis is well demonstrated by mood effects where people tend to evaluate various targets more positively when they are in a good mood than in a bad mood. For instance, people report higher life satisfaction when they are in a good mood on a sunny day rather than in a bad mood on a rainy day. However, if the interviewer mentions the weather before they ask the life satisfaction question, this mood effect disappears because people accurately attribute their current mood to the weather rather than their life satisfaction.


Gricean Maxims and survey response

Norbert Schwarz is also known for his research on cognitive processes underlying survey response. This work generally treats the survey interview context as a conversation between the researcher and the respondent. According to this logic, surveys are governed by the
cooperative principle In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective conversational communication in common social situations—that is, how listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutual ...
advanced by
Paul Grice Herbert Paul Grice (13 March 1913 – 28 August 1988), usually publishing under the name H. P. Grice, H. Paul Grice, or Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language who created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle ( ...
, the late philosopher of language. Put simply, the cooperative principle states that people try to communicate clearly and truthfully, in as much detail as required (but not more so), giving only relevant information. Schwarz's research implicates the operation of these maxims during various stages of the survey question and answering process, and highlights how features of the research instrument can significantly impact the answers obtained. For example, when asked about how successful their lives have been, individuals' responses depended on the range of a scale. "When the numeric values ranged from 0 ('not at all successful') to 10 ('extremely successful'), 34 percent of the respondents endorsed values between 0 and 5. However, only 13 percent endorsed formally equivalent values between -5 and 0, when the scale ranged from -5 ('not at all successful') to +5 ('extremely successful')."


Views on the replication crisis

Schwartz has characterized those who highlight the
replication crisis The replication crisis, also known as the reproducibility or replicability crisis, refers to the growing number of published scientific results that other researchers have been unable to reproduce or verify. Because the reproducibility of empir ...
in social psychology and propose reforms to scientific conduct as engaging in a "witch hunt".


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwarz, Norbert 1953 births Living people 20th-century German psychologists Ross School of Business faculty University of Mannheim alumni Heidelberg University alumni American social psychologists Emotion psychologists American cognitive psychologists 21st-century German psychologists 21st-century American psychologists 20th-century American psychologists German social psychologists