Christian Böffel

Cosmetic items have become one of the most profitable monetization strategies in games. Like fashion in the physical world, their value is socially constructed and tied to visibility, prestige, and identity signalling. This raises questions about whether psychological factors influence cosmetic spending behaviour. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey with 199 in-game cosmetic purchasers. We assessed trait social anxiety, avatar and self-perception, actual spending for cosmetics, Big Five personality traits, and cosmetic purchase motivation. Through structural equation modelling, we found that, among cosmetic purchasers, trait social anxiety and status motivation showed the strongest association with spending amounts, with reward motives playing a secondary role. However, qualitative findings focused more on aesthetic appeal and economic considerations as primary stated motives, while social and community influences were less central. These findings suggest that individual psychological differences may warrant important design consideration for in-game cosmetics highlighting the multi-layered influences on previous purchase decisions.

Privacy-invasive apps and social media phishing pose emerging online risks to young adults. Hybrid nudges, which combine simple nudges with educational aspects directly within related mobile interactions, represent a promising intervention to support informed decisions when confronted with security and privacy (S&P) risks. However, they are rarely adapted to the user-specific vulnerabilities and needs of young adults, which may limit their real-world uptake. In four workshops involving fourteen students aged 20-27, we explored risk perceptions influencing young adults' S&P decisions and obtained end-user feedback to research-based hybrid nudge designs. Participants emphasized the behavior of relevant others and platform-provided social indicators as key risk factors. However, social influence was also discussed as a key resource, with participants stating that previous experiences of others increased their risk awareness. Our findings further indicate that the appropriate level of information and friction may depend on the type and perceived immediacy of the respective S&P risk. Based on our findings, we discuss design implementations for integrating S&P support into mobile app stores and social media interfaces. In addition, we discuss design directions for future user research and intervention paths beyond nudging.

The construction sector accounts for a substantial share of global greenhouse gas emissions, making effective strategies for the reuse and recycling of building materials indispensable. However, relevant information may be lost over the relatively long use phase of buildings. Digital Product Passports (DPPs) offer a standardized means of preserving and communicating product information across the life cycle and may therefore also be applied in the construction sector to facilitate reuse and recycling of building components, even after service lives exceeding 50 years. This paper presents the results of a first, interdisciplinary study that (i) develops a DPP for concrete elements using the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) and (ii) experimentally evaluates how DPP-presented information shapes consumer perceptions of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) versus natural aggregate concrete (NAC) stair elements. In a scenario-based vignette experiment ( N = 83), participants evaluated eight DPP mock-ups in which material (RAC vs. NAC), environmental impact (low vs. high), and structural performance (high vs. low) were systematically manipulated. Participants indicated their willingness to pay, perceived environmental value, perceived functional risk and product preference for each DPP. Repeated-measures ANOVAs showed robust main effects of material and environmental impact on perceived environmental value, and main effects of material and structural performance on perceived functional risk. Willingness to pay and product preference were higher for RAC than NAC, for low versus high environmental impact, and for high versus low structural performance. Overall, RAC was perceived as more environmentally valuable but also as riskier than NAC, even when objective environmental and structural indicators were held constant. The results indicate that DPP design should account for target-group-specific interpretation and potential biases in processing technical and sustainability information, to better support resource-efficient decision-making in the construction sector.

Previous studies of human-avatar interaction have shown that users are able to take the perspective of an avatar and act as if they were in the avatar’s place. As a result, the positions of objects are encoded from the avatar’s perspective and within the avatar’s spatial reference frame, and avatar-based compatibility effects can be observed. In the present study, we confronted participants simultaneously with two different avatars that offered conflicting visual perspectives. We asked participants to take the perspective of one avatar while performing a Simon task. In one half of the experiment, participants controlled the hands of the instructed avatar, while in the other half, they controlled the opposite avatar. We used stimulus-response compatibility effects to examine which perspective participants took, allowing us to examine whether instruction or control was more important in resolving frame of reference conflicts. Overall, we observed a compatibility effect based on the position of the controlled avatar, even when the participants were instructed to take the perspective of the opposite avatar. This suggests that the stimuli were encoded from the perspective of the controlled avatar, despite receiving conflicting instructions. The influence of action control overpowered the top-down influence of the instruction.

Importance Medical jargon poses significant barriers to patient comprehension of healthcare information, potentially affecting treatment adherence and health outcomes. Objective To investigate whether large language models (LLMs) can improve patient understanding of medical notes by translating complex medical terminology into comprehensible lay language. Design, Setting, and Participants This experimental online study was conducted between August 27 and October 8 2024 using a within-subjects design. Participants were recruited from a university population and included 63 adults aged 19-30 years who completed the full study protocol. Interventions Four fictional medical notes representing typical neurological cases (stroke, neuromyelitis optica, meningitis, subarachnoid hemorrhage) were created by neurologists and translated into lay language using GPT-4. Each participant viewed two original and two translated notes in counterbalanced order. Main Outcomes and Measures: Primary outcomes included objective comprehension measured through content-related questions, self-paced reading times and subjective ratings of understanding, difficulty, empathy, and mental effort on 5-point Likert scales. Results Among 63 participants (52 female [82.5%]; mean age 21.9 years), translated notes demonstrated significant improvements across all measured dimensions, except for average reading times. Participants achieved higher comprehension scores (effect size details to be added), reported greater subjective understanding, perceived higher empathy, and experienced reduced mental effort and negative emotions when reading translated versus original medical notes. Conclusions and Relevance LLM translation of medical notes significantly improved both objective and subjective patient understanding. From a psychological perspective, these results align with predictions from cognitive load theory, emphasising the importance of adapting language complexity to reduce processing demands in communication between laypeople and experts. These findings suggest potential for integrating AI-assisted communication tools in clinical practice to enhance patient comprehension and engagement, though implementation considerations including accuracy validation and clinician workflow integration require further investigation.

Phishers exploit the social nature of social media, thereby targeting young adults, who are highly susceptible to phishing. This study focuses on two under-researched factors influencing young adults’ susceptibility to social media phishing: the user’s relation to the message sender and Fear of Missing Out (FoMO). In an online vignette study, 193 young adults were presented with Instagram chat messages from either known or unknown senders, accompanied by varying consequences for not clicking. These ranged from missing an event with no other user (no consequences) to missing an event with one (low) or several other users (high consequences). The analysis focused on intended behaviour and suspicion, while also capturing young adults’ situational fear of missing out on the scenario-based event with the message sender (State FoMO) and their individual Trait FoMO. The results highlight that the user-sender relation is a strong predictor of phishing susceptibility and a crucial contributor to State FoMO. Furthermore, young adults who are high in Trait FoMO exhibited lower suspicion towards phishing attempts. These findings are discussed along with methodological considerations. In addition, strategies to mitigate the identified vulnerabilities are suggested, focusing on areas where social media phishing is most likely to affect young adults.