Institute of Psychology (IfP)
Recent highlights at the Institute of Psychology (IfP) include the successful launch of the Master of Science in Psychology and the appointment of Professor Florian Schmitz to the Professorship of Psychological Diagnostics and Methodology. The entire psychological curriculum is now represented at the IfP, and its research projects cover a large bandwidth of topics.
Professor Silja Bellingrath’s research group, for instance, studied the relationship between self-regulation skills and counterproductive academic behaviours, such as procrastination and exam anxiety. Another research project investigated the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on individuals’ experience of stress and well-being.
Professor Annette Boeger’s research group has implemented and evaluated the ‘Förderuniversum’ programme in a collaborative project with the City of Hamm. Furthermore, an interview study on difficult situations in authentic mediation contexts was launched.
Professor Thomas Forkmann’s research group examined predictive factors of suicidal ideation and behaviour as part of a prospective, DFG-funded multi-centre study, focusing also on the progression of psychopathological variables in everyday life.
Professor Angela Heine’s research group used eye tracking to study atypical cognitive processing chains. It also focuses on the development of user interfaces based on eye-tracking technology.
Professor Philipp Jugert’s research group examined processes of social integration and participation of children and adolescents in the context of cultural diversity. Another project, funded by MERCUR (Stiftung Mercator) looked at the integration of displaced and newly immigrated children into schools.
The work of Professor Detlev Leutner’s research group focused on academic success and academic dropout (funded by the DFG and BMBF), expertise in the educational sciences and classroom management skills (funded by the BMBF), study strategies and self-regulated learning (funded by Stiftung Mercator and the RAG-Stiftung), and multimedial learning methods.
Professor Andreas Müller’s research group examined the efficacy of interventions in improving the mental health of hospital staff (collaborative project ’sEEGEN’, funded by the BMBF) and initiated a survey on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on their working conditions.
Professor Marcus Roth’s research group has completed its interdisciplinary collaborative project ‘empCARE’ on developing and integrating an empathy-based approach to easing the workload of care staff. It is currently looking into ways of measuring empathy based on objective markers and the relationship between autobiographical memory and empathy.
Professor Schmitz’s research group focuses on measuring cognitive ability and personality. At the end of 2019, the project ‘Disentangling Mental Speed, Working Memory Capacity, and Fluid Intelligence’, a DFG-funded study into measuring ability, was finished.
A recent highlight of Professor Gisela Stein’s research group was the launch of an international research project in collaboration with Professor Angelo Brandelli of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, focusing on perceptions of people with HIV.
Professor Lisa von Stockhausen’s research group examines to what extent basic processes of concentration and higher cognitive processes (i.e., executive functions) can be improved through practice. In associated studies, the group focuses on the cognitive mechanisms involved in mindfulness training.
The IfP maintains international partnerships with a large number of institutions, such as the University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University and the Trimbos Instituut (NL), Jagiellonian University in Krakow (PL), Masaryk University in Brno (CZE), the University of Trento (ITA), the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Madrid (ESP), the Université du Luxembourg (LUX), the University of Glasgow (GBR), the University of Southern Denmark (DNK), the University of California at Santa Barbara (USA) and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IND).