Biblatex-apa: No change of citation with three authors to “et al.” (“/u.a.” in german) after first citing the source

Question

in my doc, biblatex-apa seems not to change citation-style to "et al." for a source with three authors after first citing that source, if there are other citations in between.

So, when citing the source the first time it should be "(Stroebe, Nijstad & Rietzschel, 2010)" and the second time "(Stroebe et al., 2010)".

With four authors, it's working as intended in my doc. I compared the entries in the .bib and found nothing wrong. I tried to search for that problem some hours and surprisingly haven't found any entries refering to this problem with up-to-date version of biblatex-apa.

I am totally new to LaTex and just don't know, what else to do.

What am I doing wrong?

I'm using MikTex 2.9, biblatex-apa v1.7 with biber v0.9.9

Here is an example:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,oneside,parskip=half]{scrreprt}
\listfiles
\usepackage[american, ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=apa,babel=other]{biblatex}
\DeclareLanguageMapping{german}{german-apa}
\addbibresource{minibib.bib} 
\begin{document}

\parencite{Stroebe2010}.\\
%\parencite{Stroebe2004}?\\ % excluding this, the subsequent citation becomes "et al."
\parencite{Stroebe2010}.

\printbibliography[heading=bibnumbered]
\end{document}

My .bib exported from Mendeley is as follows:

@article{Stroebe2010,
annote = {      },
author = {Stroebe, Wolfgang and Nijstad, Bernard A and Rietzschel, Eric F},
editor = {Psychology, Mark P Zanna and James M Olson B T - Advances in Experimental Social},
isbn = {0065-2601},
journal = {Advances in Experimental Social Psychology},
pages = {157--203},
publisher = {Academic Press},
title = {{Beyond Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: The Evolution of a Question}},
url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S006526011043004X},
volume = {Volume 43},
year = {2010}
}
@article{Stroebe2004,
author = {Stroebe, Wolfgang and Nijstad, Bernard A},
doi = {10.1026/0033-3042.55.1.2},
file = {:C$\backslash$:/Users/Rico/AppData/Local/Mendeley Ltd./Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded/Stroebe, Nijstad - 2004 - Warum Brainstorming in Gruppen Kreativit\"{a}t vermindert.pdf:pdf},
issn = {0033-3042},
journal = {Psychologische Rundschau},
keywords = {1953,brainstorming,creativity,ein einflussreiches buch,ein halbes jahrhundert vor,erscheinen dieses artikels,group processes,group productivity,in dem er ein,osborn,social cognition,verfahren zum,ver\"{o}ffentlichte der werbefachmann alex},
month = jan,
number = {1},
pages = {2--10},
title = {{Warum Brainstorming in Gruppen Kreativit\"{a}t vermindert: Eine kognitive Theorie der Leistungsverluste beim Brainstorming}},
url = {http://psycontent.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article\&id=doi:10.1026/0033-3042.55.1.2},
volume = {55},
year = {2004}
}

Thank you very much for your answers!

Answer 1

This is, in fact, the correct disambiguation behaviour. When you cite the 2004 paper, the biblatex "uniquelist" feature (which APA requires) expands the name lists to the point of minimum ambiguity which is:

Stroebe & Nijstad et al.
Strobe & Nijstad

However, since "et al" is plural and should not replace only one name, the hidden name is printed instead of "et al". I have confirmed this as correct behaviour with the APA and it will appear in future revisions of the official style.

Answer 2

set maxcitenames

\usepackage[backend=biber,style=apa,babel=other,maxcitenames=3]{biblatex}