CURRENT PROJECTS
VIBE - Variability of Social Interaction Behaviors and Experiences
How do young people fare in their relationships with others, such as their friends or family members? How confident or insecure do they appear in everyday social situations? How stressed or understood do young people feel? And how do they perceive those around them?
The aim of the VIBE study is to gain a better understanding of how young people experience their social relationships, how they try to shape them according to their own needs, and what role their own personality plays in this. We want to find out how young people perceive themselves and what is important to them in their interactions with others. We are particularly interested in how social interactions take place in everyday life and how they differ depending on the situation and the people involved.
LEAD - Understanding Developmental Antecedents, Processes, and Consequences of Leadership in Adolescence
Leadership skills are critical to success in many areas of life. While most studies on leadership focus on adults, we know little about how and when these skills emerge and develop—even before entering the workforce as an adult. First studies show that important leadership components are already visible in a wide variety of social contexts in childhood and adolescence—such as team captains in sports teams, school groups working together on projects or friends organizing initiatives against climate change.
From a developmental psychology perspective, adolescence is a key phase for the development of traits and skills related to leadership. The LEAD project aims to gain a better understanding of how leadership manifests in adolescents' social interactions, what individual and contextual factors predict them, and what impact they have on adolescents' lives.
LEAD is a cooperative project of the University of Hamburg (PI: Dr. Bleckmann) and Northwestern University in Chicago (PI: Prof. Dr. Tackett) and is supported by a Joint Seed Funding Grant from University of Hamburg and Northwestern University.
SEED – Socio-Emotional Development in School
School is a place where, alongside knowledge transfer, the personal development of students should be fostered. Although research has been exploring processes of successful learning and conditions of educational contexts for many years, developmental processes of social and emotional characteristics have only recently gained increasing interest. Within the project Socio-Emotional Development Dynamics in School (SEED), the development of 10th grade students in Hamburg is examined with a special focus on individual and contextual influencing factors in learning environments. The SEED project pursues two central objectives: First, we aim to identify school-related and individual factors that affect and explain the socio-emotional development of adolescents, elucidating why teenagers differ in how successfully they cope with age-specific developmental challenges in the school context. Second, we want to shed light on processes of socio-emotional development by considering everyday experiences of adolescents in school life.
NUDS – Navigating Uncertainty: Deciphering the Wisdom in Neuroticism Adolescent Social Development
NUDS is a cooperation between the University of Hamburg (project head: Prof. Wagner) and the University of Groningen (project head: Prof. Jeronimus). In their transition to adulthood, adolescents have to tackle numerous challenges, including the shift of focus from parent-child relationships to relationships with peers. These changes are accompanied by many uncertainties and often increase the willingness to engage in risky behavior. The central goal of this project is to shed light on the potential benefits of neuroticism, defined as the propensity to feel anxious and easily stressed, for adolescent (social) development. So far, neuroticism has been mainly linked to negative life outcomes such as less satisfying and more conflictual relationships. However, neuroticism might also have a protective function by providing adolescents with a heightened sensitivity for potential threats and thereby help individuals to navigate complex social situations. To examine this possibility, we will both systematically review existing literature and conduct empirical research with longitudinal adolescent samples.
The project is funded by the Groningen-Hamburg funding program.
BIJU – Educational Careers and Psychosocial Development in Adolescence and Early Adulthood
The BIJU study, launched in 1991 at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin by Prof. Baumert, is an ongoing project to track educational and developmental trajectories from childhood to adulthood. The longitudinal study, which was launched in two former East and two former West German states, is supplemented by a cross-sectional study and thus provides a broad database on psychosocial development from childhood to adulthood. The BIJU study is a cooperative project between the IPN Kiel, the DIPF Frankfurt and the University of Hamburg. Prof. Wagner took over responsibility for the study together with Prof. Becker (TU Dortmund) within the currently last survey wave (wave 8). The first specific research questions have already been addressed. For example, in a current study we are investigating how a common developmental dynamic of personality and motivation from young to middle adulthood affects professional success. Another question we would like to investigate is the role of personality (change) for political interest and voting behavior.
Publications:
Brandt, N. D., Israel, A., Becker, M., & Wagner, J. (2021). The joint power of personality and motivation dynamics for occupational success: Bridging two largely separated fields. European Journal of Personality, 089020702199696. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890207021996965
Brandt, N. D., Savage, C., Roberts, B. W., Baumert, J., & Wagner, J. (2022). Who do you trust? The role of level and change in trust and personality across young to middle adulthood for political interest and voting intentions. Journal of Research in Personality, 101, 104288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2022.104288
SNAP – Soziale Interaktionen und Persönlichkeitsentwicklung in der Adoleszenz
How do adolescents behave in social situations? How do they perceive themselves in social interactions and how do they perceive other people? Does the personality of their interaction partners affect their behavior? In SNAP, we were interested in the interplay between personality and social interactions in adolescence. By following our adolescent participants in their social interactions both in a virtual interaction and in their everyday lives, we investigated the behaviors, feelings, and perceptions of adolescents in different social contexts. Moreover, we explored how social experiences were linked to changes in adolescents’ behaviors and perceptions. With our research, we gained new insights into the processes that shape the ways in which adolescents view themselves and how different interpersonal perceptions affect their personal and social development.
This project was part of the research group “Mechanisms of Change in Dynamic Social Interactions” and funded by the Landesforschungsförderung, Hamburg.
Publications:
Bleckmann, E., Rau, R., Carlson, E. N., & Wagner, J. (in press). I think you might like me: Origins and development of meta-liking in initial social interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Bleckmann, E., Nestler, S., & Wagner, J. (2023). Routes to momentary self‐esteem in adolescence: Links with interpersonal perceptions of liking and personality metaperceptions within social interactions. Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12883