Profil / Research
At the Chair of Social Psychology, the following topics are being researched:
Social psychology examines the influence of the actual or imagined presence of others on human behavior and experience. Within this research area, the Chair of Social Psychology focuses on the following questions:
- How can interventions improve social relationships in partnerships, with others (at the workplace, in the family, with friends, neighbors), and between groups (e.g., the Israel-Palestine conflict)? How does stress affect aggression? Does the Intergroup Empathy Bias exist? These are the research topics of PD Dr. Olga Klimecki.
- What does the individual need for uniqueness and individuality mean? How does this need affect behavior? These are the research interests of Dr. Alina Tilner.
- How do people deal with conflicts when making difficult decisions and expressing opinions that contradict their personal or moral beliefs? Dr. Shiva Pauer researches these issues.
- How can attitudes on various topics (such as smartphones, politicians, etc.) be deliberately changed? And what happens to attitudes toward topics that weren’t addressed at all? Are there people who become authoritarian precisely because freedom is especially important to them? This is the subject of research conducted by Roman Linne.
- What role does political group membership play in social perception? This is the research focus of Julia Krüger, M. Sc..
Collaborations
We work together with scholars from:
- Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
- University of Geneva, Switzerland
- Hebrew University, Israel
Team
Get to know more about our Team.
Teaching
We are participating in the University’s bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in psychology, educational sciences, economics, and history. We are teaching several lectures, seminars, and tutorials. In the psychology master program, we focus on teaching “judgment and decision making”. Please find more information here.
Our department in the media
Here you find media coverage of our scientific research.