On February 3th 2025, our chair hosted the festive final colloquium of the Master's students on the Master's degree course in Work, Organizational and Business Psychology. In addition to the presentations given by the students, there was a guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Nils Köbis titled "How AI influences human ethical behavior". Finally, Arnulf Schüffler (BOWIP) addressed a few words to the students before the certificates were handed over by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Hofmann.
Congratulations to all students who gave their presentation that day! We wish you all the best for the future!
On February 5th 2025, our chair has the honour to host Dr. Christine Unterrainer, Prof. Dr. Thomas Höge and Prof. Dr. Severin Hornung from the University Innsbruck, who will give a talk about internalized neoliberal ideologies. Dr. Christine Unterrainer, Prof. Dr. Thomas Höge, and Prof. Dr. Severin Hornung have a background in organizational psychology and critically review the hegemonial, neoliberal culture in developed countries. Their talk is titled “Psychologische Implikationen internalisierter neoliberaler Ideologien im Kontext aktueller sozial-ökologischer Krisen“. An abstract is available here.
The talk will be divided into three 15-min slots: First, the researchers are going to present a scale construction approach to measure internalized neoliberal ideologies. Secondly, they are going to present cross-sectional relations of neoliberal ideologies with related psychological constructs (e.g., political orientation, party preferences, moral foundations) in Germany and Austria. Finally, they are going to demonstrate the intricate relationship between neoliberal ideologies and social and ecological crises.
We would like to cordially invite anyone who is interested to join the group talk and take part in a hopefully ensuing discussion! The event takes place from 10:15 – 11:45 am in IB 4/115.
On November 14th, our team contributed to the program of the RUB sustainability day. Sascha Kuhn presented our team at the Sustainable Marketplace with a booth featuring two exiting highlights:
1. The Winter & Summer School about navigating the Polycrisis:
Sascha shared insights from the Summer School held once in March and once in September, which took place at a campground. The program aimed to empower students to navigate the complex global crisis. Furthermore, the excursion offered students the chance to connect with nature, emphasizing the importance of shared group experiences in addressing challenging topics.
2. New Book on Critical Environmental Psychology:
Sascha Kuhn also introduced a newly published book, to which he contributed as an editor & author. The book explores how psychology must evolve to address the challenges of contemporary social-ecological crises by incorporating critical, decolonial, and intercultural perspectives. It highlights the discipline's potential for transformation, examining current societal phenomena and showcasing emancipatory projects that demonstrate the practical applications of critical environmental psychology.
Many thanks to the organization team for making the sustainability day possible and providing a platform to spotlight these important topics. Learn more about the excursion by checking out an interview with Sascha here. Dive into the book on Critical Environmental Psychology by clicking here. The book is also available as a PDF via the RUB library.
The designation of the Social Psychology Area has been extended to "Social and Environmental Psychology". This change reflects our area's long-standing research focus, teaching, and professional activities in both social and environmental psychology. New logo coming soon...
On October 16th, the student council announced the faculty teaching awards for the summer term 2024. Not only one, but two members of the Social Psychology chair received awards. Congrats to Wilhelm Hofmann, who scored “best professor” in the overall ranking and won the category “presentation style”, as well as to Sascha Kuhn, who won the categories “gain of knowledge” and “fairness of assessment”. A big thank you to all members of the faculty´s student council who were involved in the planning and organization of the event!
From September 16th until September 19th the 53rd DGPs Congress was held in Vienna, Austria. Several researchers of our team participated in the Congress and actively contributed to the scientific program. Elke Rohmann participated with a presentation discussing the question “Are narcissists trolls?”. Sascha Kuhn and Heiko Mikolajczak contributed a poster on the topic of the psychology of Climate Change (“Teaching about modernity/coloniality to face the end of the world as we know it”). Isabelle Weißlog presented a MAHIDA and Random Forest Modeling Approach to answer the question “When do quantitative intersectional effects manifest in person evaluations?" Wilhelm Hofmann co-organized a classic symposium on self-control as well as the DGPs Section Symposium of Environmental Psychology on “The unbearable lightness of change in societal transformation” in which he gave a talk about “The perceived feasibility of individual behavior change and its relationship with climate policy support”. Many thanks to the organizers who made the congress possible despite highly challenging weather conditions!
Am 09.02.2024 fand das feierliche Abschlusskolloquium der Masterstudierenden des Studienganges Arbeits-, Organisations- und Wirtschaftspsychologie statt. Wir gratulieren nochmal recht herzlich allen Vortragenden und wünschen für die Zukunft alles Gute und viel Erfolg!
Our team member Sonja Grelle successfully defended her PhD thesis on February 8 and received her doctorate. Congratulations, Sonja! Sonja will remain a member of our team and continues her scientific career as a postdoctoral researcher.
On the 13.12.2023 Isabelle Weißflog will present her studies at the Resistance Psychology Network.
"We surveyed 1000 Russians living in Russia about their attitudes towards the war in Ukraine and any actions they took or plan to take to either support or oppose the war. We focus on three different types of predictors of anti-war collective action in an authoritarian country. First, we look at differences in the subjective construal of the war by assessing what kind of consequences people think the war has for basic human values; we then test whether differences in these construals are predictive of collective action. Second, we test how media consumption shapes attitudes and behavior. Third, we look at feelings of group-based guilt and shame, specifically whether it is necessary to have a sense of control over the government's decisions to experience these emotions, and whether experiencing these emotions increases the likelihood of engaging in anti-war action."
Schedule for Virtual Meeting Series on the Psychology of Resistance in Violent, Repressive Contexts (2023/24, Season 1)
You can see the full schedule under: https://resistancepsych.blogspot.com/p/schedule.html
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XozqxnsILXM
The 2023 faculty teaching awards for the summer term have been announced. Congrats to Sonja Grelle ("Innovation"), Elke Rohmann ("fairness"), Sascha Kuhn ("gain in knowledge"), and to Wilhelm Hofmann (first price at the full professor level)! After the award ceremony, Sascha Kuhn and Wilhelm Hofmann watched and discussed the movie "don't look up" with students. Big thanks to our faculty's student council for organizing this memorable event!
Our unit participated in the sustainability week of the RUB with a booth showcasing selected student projects (podcasts, blogs, and even a social dilemma board game) emerging from our practice-oriented teaching of sustainability for the master program in business psychology (applied social psychology module). Big thanks to Moritz and Luisa for the setup and the presentation! You can find our poster here.
It's official: From 1st of November Dr. Vladimir Ponizovskiy will start his new position as Lecturer/Assistant professor of Psychology at the University of Durham – congratulations!!!
On the 13.12.2023 Isabelle Weißflog will present her studies at the Resistance Psychology Network.
"We surveyed 1000 Russians living in Russia about their attitudes towards the war in Ukraine and any actions they took or plan to take to either support or oppose the war. We focus on three different types of predictors of anti-war collective action in an authoritarian country. First, we look at differences in the subjective construal of the war by assessing what kind of consequences people think the war has for basic human values; we then test whether differences in these construals are predictive of collective action. Second, we test how media consumption shapes attitudes and behavior. Third, we look at feelings of group-based guilt and shame, specifically whether it is necessary to have a sense of control over the government's decisions to experience these emotions, and whether experiencing these emotions increases the likelihood of engaging in anti-war action."
You can see the full schedule under: https://resistancepsych.blogspot.com/p/schedule.html
Critical Environmental Psychology Lecture Series
The working group Critical Environmental Psychology will host again an online lecture series. The series will focus on “Critical/Decolonial Perspectives on the Polycrisis”. Speakers will present their topic for about 30 - 45 minutes, after which the room will be opened for discussions. The series takes place every first Tuesday of the month at 18:30 CET. This time the series will be in English. The following speakers are presenting:
09. Oktober 23 – 18:30: Why we need to be more critical? by Sascha Kuhn and Ganga Shreedhar - Why we need to be more critical (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXsQJH9MAak&t=567s)
07. November 23 – 18:30: What is critical environmental psychology by Susana Batel
05. December 23 – 18:30: Preliminary Reflections on a Theory of Collective Agency in the Face of the Climate Crisis by Michael Zander
09. January 24 – 18:30: Slow Violence in the Southwest: Toward a Socioecological Understanding of Toxic Trauma by Harrison Schmitt
06. February 24 – 18:30: Knowledge Production as an Environmental Justice Issue by Gloria Muñoz & Beth Reddy
05. March 24 – 18:30: Climate Fear: Emancipation Instead of Denial with Rhonda Koch & Marvin Ester
More Info and registration via the following link:
https://kritischeumweltpsychologie.wordpress.com/2023/09/18/vortagsreihe-lecture-series-2023-24/
Sessions will be recorder. You will find the recordings on our YouTube channel: YouTube Critical Environmental Psychology
Wilhelm Hofmann received a mid-career award from the European Association of Social Psychology at the 2023 Meeting in Krakow, next to Ayse Uskul (University of Kent) and Ángel Gómez (UNED, Madrid), congratulations to all awardees!
Sascha Kuhn has joined our group as postdoctoral researcher and will be working on issues in environmental psychology - welcome to the team, Sascha!
It's official: Dr. Lusine Grigoryan will start her new position as Lecturer/Assistant professor of Psychology at the University of York - congratulations, Lusine, so well-deserved!
Dr. Stephen Murphy has moved to his new postdoc position at Ghent University where he will be investigating the link between digital/social media and wellbeing using experience sampling study methodology. Congratulations, Stephen, and best success in your new role!
The 2022 faculty teaching awards have been announced by the student council of our faculty. Congrats to Sophia Terwiel for winning the best overall evaluation at the early career level ("Goldenes Kleinhirn") and to Wilhelm Hofmann for first price at the full professor level ("Goldenes Hirn")!
We had a very nice barbecue afternoon on 13.06.2022 in front of the HZO of the RUB.
The whole team of social psychology participated and brought culinary delicacies.
In the evening, there was a small karaoke show with light effects and all the necessary equipment.
On 19.05.2022 we took part in a guided tour of the Fiege brewery. The whole team was enthusiastic and at the end everyone sat in the „Fiege Bierstube“ on the top floor. We used the time to try some of the delicious beers, and had a side dish of curry sausage with bread rolls. It was a very interesting event and is definitely to be recommended.
Our team wishes you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
At the beginning of December we decided to update our team picture. Say hi to our new members! Copyright: ©RUB, Marquard
Also: Navid Schürmeyer joined our team as a research assistant. Welcome, Navid!
Right picture: On 26.11, our former team member Katharina Diel successfully defended her PhD thesis and received her doctorate at Universität zu Köln. Congratulations, Kathi! Kathi has started her new position as Post-Doc at Saarbrücken University, working with Malte Friese - congratulations to both of you, Kathi & Malte!
Left picture: Our former team member Sophia Terwiel also successfully defended her PhD thesis and received her doctorate. Congratulations to you too, Sophia! Sophia will start her new career as scientific employee at the State Office for Education, Training and Personnel Matters of North Rhine-Westfalia - congratulations!
Vladimir Ponizovskiy has joined our team as a Research Fellow on the first of November.
Welcome, Vladimir!
Also: On the 15th of November, Isabelle Weißflog also joined our team. She will cooperate with Lusine Grigoryan in her studies on Identity and Prejudice.
Welcome, Isabelle!
The 2020 faculty teaching awards have been announced. Congrats to Lusine Grigoryan for receiving the best overall teaching score award for seminar teaching and for the category award for "fairest scoring", and to Wilhelm Hofmann for the category award for "gain of new knowledge"!
Wilhelm Hofmann has been invited to join the newly formed climate crisis task force of the German Psychological Society (DGPS). The task force is chaired by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Reese (University of Koblenz-Landau).
On December 2nd, Wilhelm Hofmann delivered his inaugural address entiteld "Social Psychology in Everyday Life: The Case of Trust" - thanks to everyone for joining in!
Wilhelm Hofmann has been named to the 2020 Highly Cited Researchers list from Clarivate’s Web of Science citation index. The list identifies researchers who have demonstrated significant influence in their academic field or across several fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade.
The public, interdisciplinary lecture series on climate change and sustainability has started. It is co-organized by Scientists for Future Bochum and the Social Psychology Area. For more information and schedule of talks click here
On July 10 we had our 2020 day out with a relaxing bike tour along the beautiful river Ruhr and some industrial heritage sites.
Lusine Grigoryan received the BIGGS Best Paper Award 2020 by the Bremen International Graduate School of the Social Sciences. Congratulations, Lucy!
Tijana Kuzmanovic has joined our team as postdoctoral researchers.
Tijana Kuzmanovic begins a new 3-year Research Associate position in our unit and continues her work on intergroup relations and prejudice.
We enjoy teaching Social Psychology! Four group members received faculty teaching awards for the 2020 summer term (from left to right): Phillip Ozimek („support of students“), Sonja Grelle („fairest scoring“), Wilhelm Hofmann („best overall lecture evaluation“) [represented here by Maike Luhmann], and Hans-Werner Bierhoff („fairest scoring“).
A picture of Stephen´s Defense! Congratulations once again
Also: Jule Oettinghaus and Amelie Schmidt joined our team as research assistants.
Justine Saal has joined our team as research assistant.
On July 23, Stephen Murphy successfully defended his PhD thesis "Self-determined motivation and its effect on health-based self-regulatory processes" at Loughborough University. Congratulations, Stephen!
On July 6, we spent our annual team outing ("fun day") at the nearby Lake Kemnade.
Heike Splieth has joined our team as new office manager. Heike will support the unit in all administrative aspects regarding teaching, research projects, and general administrative aspects. Welcome to our team!
Kim Babel has joined our team as research assistant.
Phillip Ozimek received the faculty teaching award for the category of "best seminar design" during the 2019/20 winter term. Congratulations, Phillip!
On June 21, Lusine Grigoryan successfully defended her PhD thesis "Beyond Us vs. Them: Explaining Intergroup Bias in Multiple Categorization" at Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS). The examination board, consisting of Prof. Dr. Klaus Boehnke, Prof. Dr. Christopher Cohrs, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Kühnen, Prof. Dr. Michael Bender, Prof. Dr. Mandy Boehnke, Dr. Dora Simunovic, and Ms. Malgorzata Jakubowska, unanimously decided on a "pass with distinction", which is awarded at BIGSSS for "a particularly outstanding performance". Congratulations, Lusine!
Stephen Murphy has joined our team as a postdoctoral researcher. Stephen will start his work on a three-year ORA research project on "Hedonic Compensation," a bi-national project together with Lotte Van Dillen, Henk van Steenbergen, and Floor van Meer at Leiden University. You can find more information on his research and past work here
Linda Reimann has joined our team as research assistant.
Lusine Grigoryan and Grace Larson have joined our team as postdoctoral researchers.
Grace Larson continues her work on the ORA research project on "Implicit Partner Evaluations," a bi-national project together with Francesca Righetti and Ruddy Faure at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). You can find more information on her research and past work here
Lusine Grigoryan begins a new 3-year Research Associate position in our unit and continues her work on intergroup relations and prejudice. Read more about her research and past work here
Katharina Diel and Sonja Grelle have joined our team as doctoral researchers in April.
Katharina Diel will continue her work on the DFG research project "Pushing, Coasting, Disengaging: How Social Comparison Impacts Self-Regulation" as part of the research unit "Relativity in Social Cognition". Read more about her research and past work here.
Sonja Grelle is embarking on a new 3-year PhD project in our unit working on themes related to behavioral economics and morality. You can find more information on her research and past work here
Wilhelm Hofmann has been appointed Professor of Social Psychology (see faculty news here)
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Last update: Feb 10, 2025
