Research at the Institute of Psychology

Research on developmental psychology centers around understanding cultural heterogeneity in modern societies with a special focus on  ethnic diversity among youth. Adolescents are simultaneously confronted with changes due to age-specific developmental and migration-related tasks . A major research objective is therefore to better understand how developmental and acculturation-related change co-occur and interact in shaping adolescents’ development. Research topics include parent-child interactions, social relationships, and the development of a cultural identity. Contextual variations are also considered, for example by including socialization contexts or cross-cultural comparisons. Professor Peter F. Titzmann is heading this research unit.

Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processes of writing and text production, and deriving practical implications for  the instruction of writing abilities form the research focus of the educational psychology unit. Thereby, research centres on copy tasks, the contribution of coherence, perspective-taking and vocabulary for writing skills as well as the determination of text quality. Data collection takes place both in the laboratory and in schools. In the writing laboratory writing processes by hand and on the keyboard can be recorded and analysed. Professor Joachim Grabowski is responsible for this research area.

On the one hand, human intellectual abilities are limited. One reason is that information is processed via a capacity-limited working memory system. On the other hand, humans are good decision makers, that can adaptively exploit the structures of the environment. Research in the Cognitive Psychology Unit aims to understand the processes taking place and the strategies people use to cope with their limited cognitive abilities and how they exploit their abilities to behave adaptively in changing environments. The focus is on studying the interaction of perceptual attention and attention to information currently held active in working memory, and on the influence of memory on decision-making processes. The methods range from conducting behavioral experiments with eye-tracking and mathematical modelling of cognitive processes. Professor Agnes Rosner is heading this research unit.