Christian Montag

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• Prof. Dr.
• Distinguished Professor at University of Macau

Introduction Large language models (LLMs) offer a promising approach to infer personality traits unobtrusively from digital footprints. However, the reliability and validity of these inferences remain underexplored. Method Gemini 1.5 Pro and GPT‐4o were used to infer Big Five traits from 2 years of Facebook posts by 1214 Italian users. Predictions...

Recently, a new scale was developed that assesses individual differences in AI-Interaction Positivity. This scale provides insight into degrees of well-being experienced when interacting with AI-systems (via items mostly tapping into affect). The original scale was validated in the German language, so the present study presents psychometric assessm...

With large language models (LLMs) now embedded in a wide range of everyday technologies, there is increasing interest in accurately measuring public attitudes toward these systems. General instruments for assessing attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) have contributed to the field but may not fully capture attitudes specific to large langu...

With large language models (LLMs) now embedded in a wide range of everyday technologies, there is increasing interest in accurately measuring public attitudes toward these systems. General instruments for assessing attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) have contributed to the field but may not fully capture attitudes specific to large langu...

The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being felt in societies worldwide and is increasingly affecting all aspects of our daily lives. This paper discusses how AI can foster or hinder human well-being. In detail, we adopt Maslow's classic theory on human needs to take a human-centered focus and discuss how this theory can guide the creation...

The present work investigates relationships between three frameworks toassess positive and negative attitudes towards artificial intelligence or AI (Attitude towards AI scale: ATAI; General Attitude towards AI scale: GAAIS; and two single-item framework). The aim of the present study is not only to understand the degree of overlap between different...

Electrical engineering and computer science as well as social/psychological and medical sciences have different traditions in conducting research and publishing it. These disciplines vary in the degree of focus and scrutiny they place on artifacts (e.g. software & models), knowledge, and methods, as well as the researcher’s role andstance. In addit...

Objective: Reduced cognitive functions are commonly associated with diminished self-control abilities. Research on cognitive functions in gaming disorder and other specific types of problematic usage of the Internet (PUI) remains rare. The aim of this study was to compare performance in different cognitive domains between clinically validated grou...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have explored the relationship between fear of missing out (FoMO) and problematic social media use (PSMU) through cross-sectional designs. However, the relationship between core nodes of FoMO and PSMU still requires further analysis and research. OBJECTIVE This study investigated the relationship between FoMO and PSMU,...

Several studies have observed a small positive association between higher autistic traits and generalized Internet Use Disorder (IUD) tendencies, as well as with specific IUDs such as social network use disorder and Internet gaming disorder. The present study examines these relationships in a population from the Middle East region, specifically Qat...

The present study investigates satisfaction with life in the context of Panksepp’s primary emotional systems derived from affective neuroscience theory in a sample of n = 225 study participants (study 1) and a sample of n = 399 study participants (study 2). Of note, participants of the present study stem from a less studied population, namely, Indi...

In societies around the world, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is being fiercely discussed. It is difficult tograsp AI’s influence, because AI represents a general-purpose technology, which can be applied in differentsettings. One product in which AI plays a pivotal role is social media. In this context, for instance, AI is used toprovid...

Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a general‐purpose technology built into diverse products including language assistants on smartphones, recommender systems in e‐commerce and social media, and applications in social and industrial robotics. AI became a globally discussed topic when the large language model ChatGPT was launched in November 2022....

Background and aims Online shopping has become a primary form of consumption in daily life, inevitably accompanied by the emergence of problematic online shopping. Attentional bias towards online shopping cues influences individuals' online shopping behavior. This study examined attentional bias mechanisms in problematic online shoppers using two e...

As we navigate an era defined by rapid technological advancement, the pervasive integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into daily life prompts critical inquiries into its impact on individual well-being across different cultural contexts. This study investigates the relationship between AI and well-being across British and Arab populations, fo...

Background and Aims Digital media have become a fundamental aspect of daily life for children and adolescents, influencing cognitive, emotional, and social development. The present work explores the dual nature of digital media use, identifying both positive and negative impacts on well-being and development. Methods A comprehensive review of exis...

A growing number of researchers investigate individual differences in attitudes toward Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is not surprising given that the AI revolution is impacting societies around the globe. Different frameworks have been proposed to study both positive and negative attitudes toward AI. To our knowledge, the present work is the...

The present study sheds light on a new psychological construct called “AI pessimism aversion” (AIPA) describing an overly optimistic view of the benefits of AI by neglecting its potential dangers. In an international sample of N = 543 participants, we observed that the construct of AIPA strongly overlaps with single-item measures for positive and n...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing society, yet its widespread adoption is accompanied by significant ethical and societal concerns. Through a large survey, this study explores the complex interplay between self-efficacy, AI competency, cultural factors, and attitudes towards AI among UK and Arab participants. We investigate how these...

Background and aims Behavioral addictions (BAs) represent complex and multifaceted disorders often associated with maladaptive neural alteration. To deepen our understanding of the essence of BAs, this study focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying its three stages: reward seeking, self-control, and decision-making. The aim of the current meta-a...

Aims This study aimed to explore the brain activity characteristics of individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) during mobile gameplay, focusing on neural responses to positive and negative game events. The findings may enhance our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying IGD. Methods Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) w...

Explainable AI (XAI) is discussed as an important feature of AI systems that is required for professional, ethical and commercial reasons. XAI is particularly needed in AI systems that remain relatively closed, i.e. black box, on how to make decisions whether for complexity or commercial sensitivity. Still, many factors play an important role on wh...

Background During the development of addictive behaviors, theoretical models assume a shift from experience of gratification being a driver in early stages to experience of compensation which dominates at later stages of addiction development. Initial studies show a trend in this direction; however, this shift has not yet been investigated in clini...

The present chapter revisits the prevailing data business model of the social media industry and explains how it stands in conflict with psycho-developmental tasks in children and adolescents. In this realm, issues surrounding the current “APIcalypse” (based on the term application program interfaces (APIs); closed APIs hindering the study of socia...

UNSTRUCTURED The prevalence of social network sites (SNS) and messaging platforms (MSG) has transformed the way people communicate, interact, and share knowledge, leading to economic and social transformations. However, concerns about digital wellbeing have arisen due to issues such as disclosure of personal information, excessive usage, fake news,...

The introductory chapter to this book on AI attitudes explains why the study of AI attitudes is of high international relevance. In this context, the prominent Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior will be shortly revisited in the context of AI underlining that research on attitudes towards AI represents a cornerstone varia...

In this chapter it is discussed how country and culture variables might impact upon AI attitude formation. Country is described as the variable being more linked to the political environment of people—for instance as shaped by AI regulation—and culture is discussed more in terms of psychological and sociological traits such as individualistic or co...

Social capital is an important construct in diverse scientific disciplines for understanding health promotion, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. In an increasingly digitalized world, social capital can be established and used in both online and offline contexts. Previous research suggests that personality might be relevant to an understanding...

Background To understand the potential mechanisms by which cognitive reappraisal (CR) improves problematic smartphone use (PSU), this study aims to explore the attention allocation of individuals with PSU during different CR phases when exposed to smartphone-related stimuli. Methods Fifty participants were recruited for the formal experiment, with...

Given the ability to use the internet and applications that are both immediately accessible and highly rewarding to users, concern exists regarding the development of excessive and dysregulated smartphone use (also known as ‘smartphone addiction’). This chapter reviews the current state of research on dysregulated smartphone use, identifies gaps in...

The adoption of videoconferencing has brought significant convenience to people’s lives. However, as videoconferencing usage has skyrocketed, it has unveiled a range of side effects, most notably videoconference fatigue (VF). In response, this paper employed the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) as a theoretica...

We compared Ed Diener’s Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), which was designed as a purely cognitive measure of global life satisfaction, with the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales 3.1 , which provides self-report measures of Panksepp’s six primary emotions (excluding LUST), in two English-speaking samples: a main sample and a hold-out val...

Background: Serotonin (5-HT) critically regulates cognitive and emotional functions, and both stable and transient variations in 5-HT signaling have been associated with emotional dysregulations. However, findings regarding the neurofunctional effects of transient 5-HT variations have been highly inconsistent. Therefore, we examined whether individ...

Objectives We investigated salivary biomarkers of stress, more specifically, cortisol and alpha-amylase, to evaluate effects of individualized music listening (IML) in people with dementia. Method Participants were N = 64 nursing home residents with dementia (meanage = 83.53 ± 7.71 years, 68.8% female). Participants were randomly assigned to eithe...

Studying political opinions of citizens stands as a fundamental pursuit for both policymakers and researchers. While traditional surveys remain the primary method to investigate individual political opinions, the advent of social media data (SMD) offers novel prospects. However, the number of studies using SMD to extract individuals’ political opin...

The present work aims to shed light on the question of whether certain psychological characteristics go along with choosing an e-coach offer to support healthy Internet use when reporting elevated Internet Use Disorder (IUD) tendencies. Data were from a large-scale stepped care approach study to treat persons with varying degrees of IUD tendencies....

Background and aims Previous evidence has indicated that problematic social media use (PSMU) is characterized by an attentional bias to social media icons (such as Facebook icons), but not to social webpages (such as Facebook webpages). They suggest that there may be other factors influencing attentional bias like fear of missing out (FoMO). But it...

Background According to the cognitive behavioral model of social anxiety, attentional bias to negative emotional information causes and maintains anxiety. The goal of attentional bias modification (ABM) is to reduce anxiety by reducing attention bias to negative emotional information. Method We used questionnaires and experiments to explore the im...

Objective In the present work we investigate how individual differences in at least occasionally using distinct social media platforms is linked to social networks use disorder (SNUD) tendencies. A final sample of n = 2200 participants filled in the AICA-C-9 measure to get insights into individual differences in overuse of social media and particip...

In 2019, Gaming Disorder (GD) was acknowledged as an official diagnosis by the World Health Organization. The Gaming Disorder Test (GDT) is the most widely used tool to measure GD; however, due to its novelty, various measurement properties are still unexplored, and the number of validated language variants is still limited. The present study is th...

The present study investigated whether life engagement and happiness can be predicted from gaming motives and primary emotional traits. Two machine learning algorithms (random forest model and one-dimensional convolutional neural network) were applied using a dataset from before the COVID-19 pandemic as the training dataset. The algorithms derived...

Background Smartphones and social media have become ubiquitous in our lives, and while debates about their negative impact on mental health, addictive potential, and disruptive effects on daily activities have surged, neurobiological evidence remains scarce. Here, we investigated whether the behavioral and neural effects of interference of continuo...

In recent years, concerns over the potential negative impacts of social network sites (SNS) on users’ digital wellbeing are on the rise. These concerns have sparked a growing demand for SNS to introduce changes to their business model and offer features that prioritize users’ wellbeing, even if it means introducing fees to users. Still, it is quest...

At the time of writing, about 4.59 billion people use social media with many adolescents using their social media accounts across a myriad of applications and platforms. According to recent statistics, in 2022 individuals spent an average of 151 minutes on social media each day, illustrating the global relevance of social media (Dixon, 2022a, Dixon...

In recent years, there has been a growing need for social media platforms to offer services that preserve and promote users' digital wellbeing, including better protection of personal data and balanced technology usage. However, the current business model of social media is often seen as in conflict with users' digital wellbeing. In 2020, a study i...

The present study aimed to use a novel method (i.e., network analysis) to examine if the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale–Short-Form (IGDS9-SF) has its unidimensional structure supported across different subgroups, including gender groups, continent groups, and age groups. Participants from five continents (n = 545 in Africa; n = 27,910 in Americas;...

Graphical AbstractImpact of smartphone (over)use on cerebro-cardio-vascular health.

The prevalence of social network sites (SNS) and messaging platforms (MSG) has transformed the way people communicate, interact, and share information. However, concerns about digital wellbeing have arisen due to issues such as disclosure of personal information, excessive usage, fake news, extremism, and mental health challenges. This study aims t...

Autistic individuals generally demonstrate impaired emotion recognition but it is unclear whether effects are emotion-specific or influenced by oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genotype. Here we implemented a dimensional approach using an implicit emotion recognition task together with functional MRI in a large cohort of neurotypical adult participants (N...

The relationship between Gaming Disorder (GD) and the experience of functional impairments has received considerable theoretical attention in the recent past and current diagnostic approaches underscore the centrality of functional impairments as a requirement for GD diagnosis. However, there is limited empirical evidence illuminating the interplay...

Background and aim The study investigated the effects of a 14-day social media abstinence on various mental health factors using an experimental design with follow-up assessment. Hypotheses included positive associations between problematic smartphone use (PSU) and depression, anxiety, fear of missing out (FoMO), and screentime. Decreases in screen...

WhatsApp has billions of users worldwide. Instead of paying a subscription fee, users provide their data for the use allowance. This data is used by Meta – the company behind WhatsApp – to obtain insights into user characteristics and monetize those insights. However, this data business model is among others criticized for fostering a loss of priva...

Background We introduce a novel measure for assessing TikTok overuse, called the TikTok Use Disorder-Questionnaire (TTUD-Q). As part of ongoing investigations into the suitability of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) framework for diagnosing Gaming Disorder in the context of social media overuse, we developed this questionnaire by adapting the...

This work investigated the prevalence of filter bubble or echo chamber-related phenomena, psychological factors rendering individuals resilient or vulnerable to them, and their associations to political views focusing on extremity and polarization. For this, a cross-cultural replication of a study by Sindermann et al. (2021) was conducted. As an ex...

Increasing dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) enhances cognitive control and might reduce aggression. The Val158Met polymorphism within the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (rs4680) plays a pivotal role in prefrontal dopamine signaling, displaying associations with aggressive be...

Studying public opinion stands as a fundamental pursuit for both policymakers and researchers. While traditional surveys remain the primary method to investigate individual political opinions, the advent of social media data (SMD) offers novel prospects. However, the number of studies using SMD to extract individuals’ political opinions are limited...

This study aimed to examine the degree of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of individuals’ political information environments across offline and online media types and relations with sociodemographic variables, personality, and political attitudes. In two online surveys, German participants (sample 1: N = 686; sample 2: N = 702) provided informatio...

The recent years have seen a dramatic surge in the use of smartphones and social media, with the latter likely to be a driving force for smartphone use disorder (SmUD) tendencies. Smartphones are popularly perceived to suppress creativity by occupying moments of free thought and stealing time from developing new ideas. This paper contributes to the...

Artificial intelligence represents a key technology being inbuilt into evermore products. Research investigating attitudes towards artificial intelligence surprisingly is still scarce, although it becomes apparent that artificial intelligence will shape societies around the globe. To better understand individual differences in attitudes towards art...

Aims The present study investigated the potential links between Internet Use Disorder tendencies, well-being and the impact of COVID-19 on Internet usage patterns. Method A sample of 2498 participants filled out the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; the cognitive facet of well-being) and the Sofalizing S...

People are evolutionarily predisposed to associate threat relevant stimuli with fear or aversiveness and show an attentional bias toward threat. Attentional bias modification (ABM) has been shown to reduce threat biases, while quantitative reviews assessing the effectiveness of bias modification yielded inconsistent results. The current study exami...

This chapter focuses on the role of impulsivity in personality psychology. After a brief introduction on its relevance to (psycho-)pathologies and health outcomes, an overview of personality is provided, followed by a discussion of various approaches to defining and measuring impulsivity. The chapter then delves deeper into impulsivity as a persona...

In this paper, we present ChatDashboard, a framework for collecting, linking, and processing donated WhatsApp chat log data. The framework consists of the WhatsR R package for parsing, anonymizing, and preprocessing donated WhatsApp chat logs, the ChatDashboard R Shiny web app for uploading, reviewing, and securely donating WhatsApp chat logs, and...

Purpose The growing awareness and concern about the excessive use of social media have led to an increasing number of studies investigating the underlying factors contributing to this behavior. In the literature, it is discussed that problematic social media use (PSMU) can impact individuals’ mental health and well-being. Drawing on the Interaction...

BACKGROUND Unobtrusively collected objective sensor data from everyday devices like smartphones provide a novel paradigm to infer mental health symptoms. This process called smart sensing allows a fine-grained assessment of various features (e.g., time spent at home based on the GPS sensor). Based on its prevalence and impact depression is a promis...

Background Unobtrusively collected objective sensor data from everyday devices like smartphones provide a novel paradigm to infer mental health symptoms. This process, called smart sensing, allows a fine-grained assessment of various features (eg, time spent at home based on the GPS sensor). Based on its prevalence and impact, depression is a promi...

Shinrin-Yoku, also known as forest-bathing, has become the focus of much psychological and neuroscientific research in recent years. In this realm, it has been shown that spending time in the forest, with a focus on the forest environment, has positive effects on both cognition and emotion. Interestingly, an individual differences perspective from...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is built into many products and has the potential to dramatically impact societiesaround the world. This short theoretical paper aims to provide a simple framework that might help us understand how theintroduction and/or use of products with AI might influence the well-being of humans. It is proposed that considering th...

Background Nearly five billion individuals worldwide are using social media platforms. While the benefits of using social media, such as fostering social connections, are clear, ongoing discussions are focused on whether excessive use of these platforms might have adverse effects on cognitive functioning. Excessive social media use shares similarit...

We explored problematic smartphone use (PSU) using latent profile analysis (LPA) and relationships with anxiety variables, including severity of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), and Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) in a non-clinical sample. We conducted a web-based survey (during the COVID-19 pandemic from February to Ma...

Potential benefits and risks related to mainstream social media platforms and their revenue model are vigorously debated. However, a comprehensive framework of performance criteria to evaluate social media platforms and suggestions for transforming them are rare. Employing a transdisciplinary approach, the present work aimed to close these gaps thr...