Invited talk by Dr. Niclas Kuper (University of Münster) on November 27 in room IA 1/91: Idiographics and nomethetics in personality science: Exploring person-specificity in the context of person x situation interaction. All who are interested are welcome to attend.
The program for the colloquium of the Psychological Methods lab in the winter semester is now fixed.
Topics:
* New tools for meta-analyses * Opportunities & pitfalls in the use of ChatGPT * Practical tips for evaluating and reviewing specialist articles * Formalization of verbal theories in psychology * Introduction to Quarto: A new application in R for creating reproducible documents
Highlights in this semester:
Invited talk by Dr. Niclas Kuper (University of Münster) on nomothetic and idiographic research in personalitypsychology on November 27 & Mini-Conference: presentation of current research projects as well as Bachelor's and Master's theses at our chair on December 02.
Who can participate?
All students and members of our department are invited, regardless of whether you would like to attend the entire semester or only selected sessions. The program can be shared with interested people.
Language:
Current research projects will in parts be presented in English at the mini-conference. If English speakers are present, the regular sessions will also be held in English.
Many thanks for the teaching awards that Maike Luhmann was handed over by the student council this week! We are happy that her work is so much appreciated by the students.
The LONELY-EU project, which will be funded by the European Commission with around 3 million euros, will start on February 1, 2025. Coordinated by Prof. Dr. Maike Luhmann, an international consortium will develop ways to share knowledge and connect expertise. One of the aims of LONELY-EU is to encourage decision-makers to develop targeted and fact-based measures to prevent and reduce loneliness in Europe. Further information on the project can be found here or here.
We wish everyone a great and interesting winter term. In particular, we would like to welcome the new students and we hope they have an unforgettable Freshman Week.
The study protocol for the Improve Mental Health (Improve-MH) project, in which also members of our lab are involved, was published in the journal BMJ Open. The aim of the project is to improve mental health in refugee families through a psychotherapeutic intervention carried out by GPs in combination with the Triple P parenting program. The study protocol can be accessed following this link.
This week we presented our latest research on loneliness and well-being at the DGPs congress -- either digitally or on-site in Vienna. We also learned a lot of interesting stuff from the diverse contributions of other congress participants.
This week we said goodbye to a few of our student assistants and tutors at a joint dinner. Thank you for the many years of support and good luck with your future paths!
Get out of isolation! Current report on loneliness from the cultural program aspekte on the German television channel ZDF. The program can be accessed following this link.
June 2024
At its annual conference, the German Ethics Council addressed the topic of loneliness and shed light on the empirical foundations from the perspective of the social sciences, psychology and medicine.
On June 6, 2024, the first loneliness conference took place in the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia. Ministers, state secretaries, professors, researchers, students, civil servants and interested parties came together to engage in a joint discussion. In addition to various greetings, speeches and presentations, Maike Luhmann also gave an insight into current loneliness research. She was then part of a panel discussion in which comedian Atze Schröder, the initiator of the project "eigen - Von Einsam- und Gemeinsamkeiten" Tim Kramer and the project manager of Silbernetz e.V. Sophia Nagelschmidt also took part. Accompanied by the "Market of Opportunities", where various organizations, foundations, projects and initiatives against loneliness and for social connectedness were given the opportunity to introduce themselves and network with others, there were another four forums that dealt specifically with loneliness in relation to age, youth, society and neighbourhood. It was an important and influential day that represents another step towards raising awareness and tackling what Prime Minister Wüst has described as the "New Social Question".
Further information can be found on the website of the State Chancellery and detailed reports were written by WDR, RTL West and others.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier invited to a background discussion on loneliness:
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosted a background discussion on loneliness at Bellevue Palace on March 18, 2024, to which Prof. Dr. Maike Luhmann and three other experts were invited. The 90-minute discussion focused in particular on young people and people of advanced age and highlighted the responsibility and room for action of politics and society.
For the TV documentary TerraXplore, Eric Mayer interviewed various people on the subject of loneliness, including RUB students on the university bridge and Maike Luhmann. The video series can be found following this link in the ZDF Mediathek.
Can people choose to be happy? To date we have no definite answer to this very old question. In this paper published in the European Journal of Personality, we introduced and tested a new theoretical model of the pursuit of happiness. You can access the publication of Julia Krasko, Sabrina Intelisano, and Maike Luhmann by following this link: EJP Publication and the publicly accessible post-print version of the article by following this link: Postprint
Loneliness is the unpleasant feeling people experience when their social needs are not met (Luhmann, 2022; Peplau & Perlman, 1982). It is mainly associated with older people, who particularly suffer from loneliness (Hawkley et al., 2022; Luhmann & Hawkley, 2016; Qualter et al., 2015). However, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that loneliness can occur at any age (Entringer, 2022; Entringer & Kröger, 2021). Young adults under 30 seem to be particularly affected by loneliness during and after the pandemic (Alt et al., 2021; Entringer, 2022; Das Progressive Zentrum et al., 2023; Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2021; Schütz & Bilz, 2023). Therefore, the study "Loneliness among young people in North Rhine-Westphalia after the pandemic", commissioned by the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), specifically examined adolescents and young adults from NRW. The main objectives of the study were to estimate the current prevalence of loneliness, identify risk and protective factors, and explore coping strategies to provide recommendations for prevention and intervention strategies against loneliness among adolescents and young adults in NRW. On Friday, November 24, 2023, Prof. Maike Luhmann and Hendrik Wüst presented the study results in Berlin at the NRW State Representation (click here for the press release). The study revealed a high prevalence of loneliness among adolescents and young adults (Luhmann et al., 2023). Notably, close friendships play a crucial role in combating loneliness (Luhmann et al., 2023). Detailed results can be found in the study report following this link.
November 2023
Maike Luhmann and Debora Brickau talk about how common loneliness is, who is particularly at risk of feeling lonely and what the consequences of loneliness are.
For the past summer term, Maike Luhmann was awarded by the students of our faculty in the categories lecture slides and engagement for the students. Congratulations, Maike!
June 2023
In this year's 5x5000 competition, the "Rscape Room" designed by us was awarded as a winning project by the student jury. The Escape Room scenario was developed for the course Statistics and Applied Data Analysis 1 (WiSe 22/23) with the aim to make the teaching of the statistical software R even more appealing and motivating. Like in a classic Escape Room, students had to solve various puzzles in a story-driven setting to reach the goal. In order to solve the tasks, the students had to apply their knowledge of the statistic program R acquired during this semester. By winning the 5x5000 competition, we are now able to design further corresponding formats based on our already piloted "Rscape Rooms". In the best possible case, this format can also be made usable for teaching other (statistical) software in the long run. We are very much looking forward to this upcoming task and would like to take this opportunity to once again express our special thanks to our students, who have supported the project with their committed participation and constructive feedback.
How (un)popular is the "Corona warning app"? We investigated this question in a study recently published in the European Journal of Public Health. The full text can be found here: Full Text. If you do not have access to the article, it can also be accessed as a "postprint" version here: Postprint version. A German-language press release is published here: press release.
The first paper using data from our large-scale daily diary study on Covid-19 (Bochum Berlin Covid-19 Study) is now published at Social Science & Medicine: here.
The consultation seminar Psychological Methods (methods consultation) is held completely online in the winter semester. The current dates and further information can be found here.
August 2020
First results on loneliness during the Corona pandemic, taken from the data of our online diary study "Bochum Berlin Covid-19 Study", show that there was no general trend towards an "epedemic of loneliness" in non-contact periods, but for some groups of people (e.g., parents) an increase in daily loneliness over time was observed.
The results are summarized in a generally understandable way in this press release: https://news.rub.de/wissenschaft/2020-08-11-psychologie-wie-einsam-sich-deutschland-waehrend-des-corona-lockdowns-fuehlte
We are currently conducting an online study to learn more about the personal, social and societal effects of COVID-19/ SARS-CoV-2 (Corona virus) in cooperation with the team of the "Psychological Assessment of Person-Situation-Dynamics" of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Further information and participation:
https://covid-19-psych.formr.org
At the 15th European Congress of Sport & Exercise Psychology in Münster, Sophia Terwiel (third from left on stage) was honored with the FEPSAC Young Research Award. Congratulations!
The project "Studying Statistics in a Motivated Way - Blended Learning in the Test Theory Lecture" by Till Kaiser and Maike Luhmann is one of the winning projects in the 23rd RUBel competition 5x5000 "Hit the Bull's Eye with eLearning".
December 2018
The SAGE Young Scholar Award for personality and social psychology goes to Maike Luhmann. This prestigious young scholar award is endowed with $5,000, which is earmarked for research purposes.
Copyright © pml 2024
Last update: Nov 01, 2024
