30.05.2025 - Science Award by the OLB Foundation!

Sophie de Lede has been awarded an OLB Science Award 2024 by the OLB Foundation for her master’s thesis “From Awareness to Action: Unveiling Pathways of Individual Mobilization Into Collective Action on Climate Change”. The thesis was completed in collaboration with the “Laboratory for the computational analysis of egonetworks, social cohesion, and exclusion” (COALESCE) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Every two years, the OLB Foundation awards six prizes for outstanding theses and dissertations from universities and colleges in northwestern Germany. In her thesis, Sophie examined the conditions under which people aware of anthropogenic climate change engage in collective climate action.

Go to the OLB Foundation’s website

21.05.2025 - We have a new publication!

In collaboration with the Verein Niedersächsischer Bildungsinitiativen and funded by the Landespräventionsrat Niedersachsen:

Bergs, L.*, Liedtke, J.*, Alheraki, F., de Lede, S., Demandt, C., Kleuker, M., Krämer, K., Middendorf, W., Parlak, Ş., Shani, M., Witolla, S., & van Zalk, M. (2025). Together For Tolerance - Miteinander Füreinander. Universität Osnabrück.

For a preview, please click here.

22.04.2025 - Our article has been awarded!

Our article A global experience-sampling method study of well-being during times of crisis: The CoCo project has ranked within the top 10% of most-viewed papers published by Social and Personality Psychology Compass in 2023 and has therefore been honored as a Top Viewed Article.

27.03.2025 - Two awards for our paper!

Our paper Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine has received two awards!

The International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology (ISSEP) has honored our work with the International Best Paper Award.

Our paper ranks 8th among the Top 25 Social Science and Human Behaviuor papers published in Nature Communications last year and has thus been included in their respective special collection.

24.02.2025 - We have a new publication!

Kotzur, P., Eckerle, F., Khosrowtaj, Z., Rothers, A., Maaser, J., Wagner, U., & van Zalk, M. H. W. (in press). Prejudice towards refugees predicts social fear of crime. British Journal of Social Psychology.

17.01.2025 - We have a new publication!

Farkhari, F., Scharbert, J., Kroencke, L., Schwarzer, C., Koch, J. F., van Zalk, M. H. W., Schlipphak, B., & Back, M. D. (2025). Right-wing authoritarianism and perceptions that minoritized groups pose a threat: The moderating roles of individual- and country-level religiosity and marginalization. British Journal of Social Psychology, 64(1), e12830. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12830

07.01.2025 - We have a new publication!

Shani, M., Goldberg, D., & van Zalk, M. H. W. (2025). “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Antisemitism and psychosocial health among Jews in Germany. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1499295. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1499295

15.11.2024 - We have a new publication!

Shani, M. (2024). Re-imaging a country beyond its conflict: Evaluation of an Israeli public diplomacy intervention for youth in Germany. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-024-00386-x

12.11.2024 - This year's conferences

We went to the 6th international meeting for the INCLUSIVITY project in Krakow!

In addition, we presented our research at various conferences:

Middendorf, W., & van Zalk, M. H. W. (2024, September 19-20). PROPS to me and you: Self-respect development in German adolescents (10-17). Paper presented at the 24-hour Political Psychology Network Meeting, Vienna, Austria.

Richters, S. (2024, June 16-20). On risks and rewards: The interplay between status and defending networks in bullying situations. Presentation in Paper Symposium 'Intervening in Victimization by Teachers and Peers: Who Benefits and Who Does Not?' at the Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Lisbon, Portugal.
Thanks to the Universitätsgesellschaft Osnabrück e.V. for sponsoring this conference visit!

Shani, M. (2024, July 1-3). Israeli Jews’ resilience, well-being, and war attitudes after the Oct 7 massacre: Unveiling the complex role of hope. The 40th Annual Conference of the Association of Israel Studies, Prague, Czech Republic.

Shani, M. (2024, July 29-August 10). ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, Oxford, United Kingdom.

ter Horst, J. (2024, September 16-19). Social network analysis to decode the contagion of internalizing problems among young adults. Research Talk as part of the symposium: Modern approaches in well-being research, Vienna, Austria.

van Zalk, M. H. W. (2024, September 19-20). Social network interventions in high schools: Evidence from the Inclusivity Norms Project. Invited Nuffield College Keynote Talk at the Workshop on Intergroup Relations and Social Networks Understanding the Patterns, Causes, and Consequences of Social Segregation, Oxford, United Kingdom.

26.06.2024 - We have a new publication!

Reiter, T., Sakel, S., Scharbert, J., ter Horst, J., Back, M., van Zalk, M., Bühner, M., & Schoedel, R. (2024). Investigating Phubbing in Everyday Life: Challenges & Lessons for Future Research. In F. F. Mueller, P. Kyburz, J. R. Williamson, & C. Sas (Eds.), CHI EA ’24: Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Article 207, pp. 1-8). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3651009

21.05.2024 - We have a new publication!

Krömeke, A., & Shani, M. (2024). Flourishing in life in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: The Role of illness identity and health-related quality of life. Journal of Health Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053241260288

07.05.2024 - We have a new publication!

Shani, M., & van Zalk, M. (2024). Love beyond gluten: self-esteem, illness identity, and social support in romantic rejection concerns among adolescents with celiac disease. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1335201

22.02.2024 - We have a new publication!

Shani, M., Kunst, J. R., Anjum, G., Obaidi, M., Leshem, O. A., Antonovsky, R., van Zalk, M., & Halperin, E. (2024). Between victory and peace: Unravelling the paradox of hope in intractable conflicts. British Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12722

20.02.2024 - We have a new publication!

Scharbert, J., Humberg, S., Kroencke, L., Reiter, T., Sakel, S., ter Horst, J., Utesch, K., Gosling, S. D., Harari, G., Matz, S. C., Schoedel, R., Stachl, C., Aguilar, N. M. A., Amante, D., Aquino, S. D., Bastias, F., Bornamanesh, A., Bracegirdle, C., Campos, L. A. M., . . . , van Zalk, M. H. W., Back, M. D. (2024). Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Nature Communications, 15(1), 1202. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44693-6

13.02.2024 - We have a new publication!

Scharbert, J., Utesch, K., Reiter, T. F., ter Horst, J., van Zalk, M. H. W., Back, M. D., & Rau, R. (in press). If you were happy and you know it, clap your hands! Testing the peak-end rule for retrospective judgments of well-being in everyday life. European Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/njmcy

05.01.2024 - Call for contribution: Special issue on the Impact of Social Norms on Cohesion and (De)Polarization

DEADLINE Abstracts: September 2024
DEADLINE Submissions: January 2025
 
We are thrilled to invite contributions to a forthcoming Special Issue on the journal Social Inclusion entitled "Special issue on the Impact of Social Norms on Cohesion and (De)Polarization". For details, please see https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/pages/view/nextissues#CohesionPolarization

22.11.2023 - We have a new publication!

Shani, M., De Lede, S., Richters, S., Kleuker, M., Middendorf, W., Liedtke, J., Witolla, S. & Van Zalk, M. (2023). A social network intervention to improve adolescents’ intergroup tolerance via Norms of Equality-Based Respect: The “Together for Tolerance” Feasibility Study. International journal of developmental science, 17(1–3), 93–110. https://doi.org/10.3233/dev-230342

12.07.2023 - We were at the 19th General Meeting of the EASP (European Association of Social Psychology) in Krakow!

There, we presented our current projects:

Middendorf, W., van Zalk, M. & Wölfer, R. (2023, July 4). A Transactional Model of Parental and Adolescent Intergroup Attitude Development [Poster Presentation]. 19th General Meeting of the EASP, Krakow, Poland.

Richters, S. & van Zalk, M. (2023, July 4). Which norms matter? An online-experiment testing the effect of friendship-group and school level norms on adolescent defending in bullying situations [Blitz Presentation]. 19th General Meeting of the EASP, Krakow, Poland.

ter Horst, J., Richters, S. & van Zalk, M. (2023, July 4). (Anti-)Social Media – A social network study analyzing the effect of peers’ social media behavior on adolescent loneliness [Blitz Presentation]. 19th General Meeting of the EASP, Krakow, Poland.

We thank the hosts for the organization and our colleagues from social psychology for the exchange!

More information at www.easp2023krakow.com

21.06.2023 - We have a new publication!

Scharbert, J.*, Reiter, T.*, Sakel, S.*, ter Horst, J.*, Geukes, K., Gosling, S. D., Harari, G. M., Kroencke, L., Matz, S., Schoedel, R., Shani, M., Stachl, C., Talaifar, S., Aguilar, N. M. A., Amante, D., Aquino, S. D., Bastias, F., Biesanz, J. C., Bornamanesh, A., . . . Back, M. D. (2023). A global experience-sampling method study of well-being during times of crisis: The CoCo project. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 17(10), e12813. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12813

11.05.2023 - We are looking for a research intern (m/f/d)!

For our international research project "Together for Tolerance" we are looking for research interns starting immediately or at any time with flexible working hours!

The tasks are varied and depend on the desired internship period. Contact us so that we can find out together how you can best contribute your knowledge and strengths to the project.

Please send your application in a PDF document to Wilma Middendorf (wilma.middendorf[at]uos.de) with the subject Research Internship_YourName.

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

18.03.2023 - We have a new publication!

Kauff, M., Kotzur, P. F., Van Assche, J., Schäfer, S. J., van Zalk, M. H. W., & Wagner, U. (2023). A longitudinal test of secondary transfer effects of negative intergroup contact and mediating processes. European Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2966

17.01.2023 - We have a new publication!

Back, M. D., Branje, S. J. T., Eastwick, P. W., Human, L. J., Penke, L., Sadikaj, G., Slatcher, R. B., Thielmann, I., van Zalk, M. H. W., & Wrzus, C. (2023). Personality and social relationships: What do we know and where do we go. Personality Science, 4, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.5964/ps.7505

22.12.2022 - We have a new publication!

De Moor, E. L., Cheng, T.-Y., Spitzer, J. E., Berger, C., Carrizales, A., Garandeau, C. F., Gerbino, M., Hawk, S. T., Kaniušonytė, G., Kumru, A., Malonda, E., Rovella, A., Shen, Y.-L., Taylor, L. K., van Zalk, M., Branje, S., Carlo, G., Padilla-Walker, L., van der Graaff, J. (2022). What should I do and who’s to blame? A cross-national study on youth’s attitudes and beliefs in times of COVID-19. PLOS ONE, 17(12), Article e0279366. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279366

01.07.2022 - We have a new publication!

Padilla-Walker, L. M.,  Van der Graaff, J., Workman, K., Carlo, G. , Branje, S., Carrizales, A., Gerbino, M., Gülseven, Z., Hawk, S. T., Kanacri, P. L., Mesurado, B., Samper-García, P., Shen, Y. L., Taylor, L. K., Trach, J., van Zalk, M. H. W., Žukauskienė, R. (2022). Emerging adults’ cultural values, prosocial behaviors, and mental health in 14 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(4), 286–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254221084098

23.05.2022 - We have a new publication!

Humberg, S., Dufner, M., Schönbrodt, F. D., Geukes, K., Hutteman, R., van Zalk, M. H. W., Denissen, J. J. A., Nestler, S., & Back, M. D. (2022). The true role that suppressor effects play in condition-based regression analysis: None. A reply to Fiedler (2021). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(4), 884–888. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000428https://psyarxiv.com/6j34w/

13.12.2021 - We have a new publication!

Friehs, M. T., Kotzur, P. K. Böttcher, J., Zöller, A. C., Lüttmer, T., Wagner, U., Asbrock, F., van Zalk, M. H. W. (2022). Examining the structural validity of stereotype content scales – A preregistered re-analysis of published data and discussion of possible future direction. International Review of Social Psychology, 35(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.613

20.07.2021 - Funding from the Landespräventionsrat Niedersachsen!

Maarten van Zalk and the Verein Niedersächsische Bildungsinitiativen received funding for the project "Together for tolerance: Miteinander füreinander" from the Landespräventionsrat Niedersachsen.

Total: 60.000 €
van Zalk: 22.500 €

04.07.2021 - Funding received from the VW Foundation: "Inclusivity"!

Prof Eva Jaspers (University Utrecht), Prof Marcin Bukowski (Jagiellonian University), Prof Miranda Lubbers (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Prof Oliver Christ (FernUniversity Hagen) and Prof Maarten van Zalk received funding for the project "Inclusivity norms to counter polarization in European societies (INCLUSIVITY)" in the Challenge for Europe call by the VW Foundation

Total: 1.488.800 €
van Zalk: 436.700 €

05.04.2021 - Funding received from the DFG: "Coping with Corona"

Prof. Maarten van Zalk (Osnabrück University), Prof. Mitja Back (WWU Münster) and Prof. Markus Bühner (LMU München) received funding for the project "Coping with Corona (CoCo): Understanding individual differences in well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic" by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Total: € 1.416.250
van Zalk: € 347.750