Der Einfluss politischer Ereignisse auf die PopularitÄt von Parteien und Politikern und auf das Parteiensystem

Political events, entering the political system as external shocks, can have a sizable impact on the popularity of political parties and politicians. We investigate this impact using as examples the unregistered campaign donations to chancellor Kohl (CDU-Spendenaffäre) and the political handling of the flash flood in the Elbe region shortly before the last federal election. Our special contribution to the literature is the combined analysis of event impacts on the valence dimension of the German party system and the inertia of the ideological dimension. By using a principal component analysis we extract a two-dimensional political configuration containing the position of parties and politicians and voters’ ideal points. We show that the basic ideological structure of the party system remains nearly unaltered even by such prominent events as the Spendenaffäre (donations scandal). The main changes affect the valence dimension. Focusing on voters we show that the greatest change of evaluation of parties takes place within the group of independents while the partisans remain rather stable in their assessments.     

Klasseneinflüsse auf das Wahlverhalten und die Wahlbeteiligung

The thesis of a declining impact of social class is widely accepted in the social sciences. A central tenet of this thesis is that in particular the impact of social class on voting has declined. Despite a plethora of empirical studies concerning this issue the mechanisms leading to this postulated decline have been relatively less explored. The current paper investigates the thesis of a substitution between class effects on voting and class effects on turnout. Under study are the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany. Using multinomial logit and logistic regression models for both countries a decline in class voting could be observed, but class effects on turnout increased in both countries. More specifically, the propensity to vote relatively to the non-manual classes has declined among the manual classes. In conjunction with the observation that class voting is higher among the manual classes this result supports the theory that the decline of class voting is due to an increasing political frustration within the manual classes. This reasoning suggests a substitution between class effects on voting and turnout.     

Der Einfluss der Gesundheit und des Gesundheitsverhaltens auf die Entstehung von Partnerschaften

This paper examines the influence of physical and mental health and health behavior on the formation of intimate relationships. Data were obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the years 2002–2014 and contain information about 6071 individuals and 4194 newly formed partnerships. For men, better mental health increasingly accelerates partnership formation in middle and later adulthood. For women, better physical and mental health reduce the transition rate into partnership at a young age and increase the transition rate into partnership at an older age. Physical inactivity and overweight reduce the likelihood of partnership formation for both women and men, whereas smoking is positively associated with partnership formation for women. The findings help to better understand how health and health behavior affect the formation of intimate relationships. Moreover, the results contribute to explaining health disparities between individuals with or without a partner.     

Der Einfluss der Arbeitslosigkeit und der sozialökologischen Kontexte auf die Bildungschancen von Kindern in Ostdeutschland

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the family’s socioecologic contextual factors and parental unemployment influence children’s opportunities for participation in higher education. It is of primary interest how factors of socioecological environment such as living conditions, residential environment, and neighbourhoods in combination with unemployment influence the successful intergenerative transmission of human-capital. For the empirical investigation, data from a postal survey of households conducted in Dresden in autumn 1999 are used. The results show that the influence of socioecologic contextual factors should not be overestimated. The socioecologic contextual factors lose their influence for the educational opportunities of the children as soon as unemployment occurs in the family. Furthermore, the impact of parental professional status on children’s educational achievement is stronger in explaining educational opportunities than socioecologic contextual factors and unemployment.     

Wertrationalität und das Modell der Frame-Selektion

According to Max Weber, value-rational action is characterized by a self-conscious elaboration of ultimate values and a consistently planned orientation to those values without regard for other consequences. This article reconstructs this type of social action within the Model of Frame Selection. This model proves to be able to incorporate Weber’s ideas of a “value reflexion” and “value orientation” as special cases of a more general theory of action. Thereby, links are also established to works of other theorists such as Raymond Boudon or Jürgen Habermas. On this basis, it is further argued that the Model of Frame Selection is well suited to provide Weber’s macro-sociological concepts of “value spheres” and “life orders” with an action-theoretic foundation. The article concludes with general remarks regarding the relationship between the Weberian research program and the approach of analytical sociology.     

Bildung und Fremdenfeindlichkeit

The study examines the role of school and family contexts for the explanation of differences in xenophobia in different school tracks. It tries to “enrich” the variable education, which is often used in a “demographic” way with characteristics that describe education contexts in school and family. Five theses were explicated and tested with data of a sample of pupils. Most important factors to explain the differences between the school track were materialistic attitudes of the pupils and the support they got in their families. For all other factors no significant effects were found.     

Effekte der Gruppengröße auf die Arbeitsmarktintegration von Migranten

Some ethnic minorities tend to be less successful in the German labour market compared to the indigenous population even when controlling for relevant resources. The paper uses data from the German Mikrozensus to investigate to what extent the remaining ethnic disadvantages can be explained by relative minority group size. On theoretical grounds, ethnic concentration can have an impact on the members of the own minority as well as on members of other ethnic groups. The paper finds empirical evidence that a strong ethnic concentration impedes structural assimilation of Turkish migrants with a higher level of education, as the ethnic mobility trap model would suggest. However, the share of the Turkish population in a county does not only have an impact on the labour market performance of Turkish migrants (endogenous effect) but also affects the economic success of Italians and Germans (exogenous effects). The empirical results indicate, that controlling for regional concentration can – at least for some minority groups and to some extent – explain remaining ethnic disadvantages.     

Institutioneller Wettbewerb und Karrierechancen von Nachwuchswissenschaftlern in der Chemie

This paper examines the interplay between intensifying competition among scientific institutions, on the one hand, and career opportunities of young scientist, on the other hand, using chemistry-departments in German universities and non-academic research institutes as an example. Drawing on Bourdieu, we construct and analyze the filed in which institutional competition takes place. The power relations in the field are structured by the relative amount of “pure scientific capital” and/or “institutional capital” available. In an analysis of professorial appointments we show that the field’s structure has little impact on junior scientsits’ career opportunities. In contrast to the US, where pervasive institutional competition goes hand in hand with a high degree of social closure in academic careers, we find that career opportunities are (still) relatively open in the German case, in spite of growing competition. This openness is due to the special institutional framework that provides the German academic field with a relatively high degree of autonomy. As recent changes in science policy aim to alter the institutional framework, they also jeopardize the autonomy of the academic field.     

Netzwerksteuerung zwischen Management und Moderation: Zur Bedeutung und Handhabung von Moderationskonzepten bei der Steuerung von Unternehmensnetzwerken

The use of participative methods, like moderation, as a management tool for interfirm networks is increasing. In contrast, the evaluation of results might not satisfy expectations. One major reason lies in the unreflective transmission from the roots of moderation. It was historically developed for the context of social groups and organizations. However, the network as a relatively unknown social phenomenon implies a set of different characteristics and conditions which have to be taken into account. Dilemmas, fluid and volatile resources as well as the lack of openness in the manner of participation shown by the members of a network, affect radically the identity, the possibilities of action and the applicable instruments of moderation. Therefore, basic principles of action (i.e. neutrality) and the demarcation from obvious roles and functions (i.e. network management) have to be reexamined.     

Der Einfluss von Persönlichkeitseigenschaften und sozialen Ressourcen auf die Arbeitslosigkeitsdauer

The influence of human capital, the local unemployment rate, the family situation, personality characteristics and the social resources on the individual length of unemployment in Germany are analysed with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Because of interactions of some covariables with time, an disproportional Cox-regression is estimated. This analysis confirms the results of previous studies, and the consideration of often neglected personality characteristics and social resources leads to interesting additional findings. In West-Germany mobile persons and actors with internalized control attitudes find a job more easily while in East-Germany social capital has a positive influence on the probability of reemployment.     

Bedeutung und Nutzen von Achtsamkeit in der Sozialen Arbeit

Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) - Der Beitrag untersucht, wie Achtsamkeit — eine besondere innere Haltung, die in der...     

Choice-Experimente und die Messung von Handlungsentscheidungen in der Soziologie

In survey-based choice experiments respondents choose from various alternative options (for actions) the most preferable one. By systematically varying attributes of the options it is possible to determine their influence on the stated choices. This enables a more direct testing of causal relations than it is possible with ??usual?? survey data. In contrast to the similar design of factorial surveys the method corresponds better with action and decision theories and a high external validity is already shown. In the paper on hand, choice experiments are introduced in their main features (theoretical foundation, design, data collection and analysis) and discussed in comparison to factorial surveys. The aim is to deliver practical tips and thereby motivate increased applications in sociology.     

Bindung und Impression-Management: Beeinflusst der individuelle Bindungsstil das Selbstdarstellungsverhalten in sozialen Situationen?

A central tenet of John Bowlby’s attachment theory is that people’s attachment experiences are integrated into so-called ‘internal working models’. These working models are supposed to contain representations about ‘the world’ as well as certain attitudes towards one’s self or one’s self-concept. In the present study, it is assumed that this self-concept, which reflects the individual’s attachment experience, exerts substantial influence on one’s self-portrayal in social situations, which is viewed as the process during which the self-concept is communicated to an audience. In the present study the attachment type was determined by the ‘Skala zur Erfassung von Bindungsrepräsentationen’ (Scale for the determination of attachment representations) which was developed by Grau (1999). Additionally, the tendency to exhibit ‘positive’ impression management strategies was measured by the ‘Fragebogen zur Erfassung positiver Selbstdarstellung’ (Questionnaire for recoding positive self-portrayals) by Mummendey and Eifler (1994). Subsequently, people’s positive self-portrayal score was compared to their attachment type. Analysis indicated that the attachment type merely had an influence on the tendency to exhibit positive self-portrayal strategies when participants had a negative representation of their-self, as well as a negative representation of others, a pattern which characterises the ‘fearfulavoidant’ type. Results also demonstrated that elder participants scored lower on the positive self-portrayal scale, irrespective of their attachment type.     

Eigenschaften,Einstellungen und Werte von Generationen: Stand und Aussicht der Forschung

Ongoing Globalization and New Work foster the importance of diversity and with that generations. The classification of generations is similar in the core angloamerican area. Mostly its one generation every 15 years, starting after world war two, specified by social-historical occurrences in their first 15 years. Often generations are described isolated ascribing attributes, attitudes and values towards one or two of them. Thus comparing, quantitative and longitudinal studies are rare. Even though positive, path-braking examples do exist. Future research should include possible covariates like subgroups, intergroup bias or contrasting, descent trauma and self fulfilling prophecies in quantitative research.     

Bildung und Übergang in den Ruhestand

On the basis of administrative data from the Research Data Centre (FDZ-RV) of the German Federal Pension Insurance, we examine the effects education has on the timing of retirement for employees in East and West Germany in 2007. The large sample size of the Scientific Use File of the pension inflow statistics (n = 29933) allows a differentiated analysis considering multiple dimensions. Using key demographic indicators such as sex, region, length of career and pension payments, we demonstrate the effects of the level of education on the age of retirement, measured in years between 60 and 65 or older. Our analysis shows that high skilled retire later than low skilled employees. The difference is smaller than one year. But the beginning of the high skilled careers is round about two years later, with higher pension payments. Based on this findings, we discuss to which extent skills can lengthen the lifetime career with respect to pull and push factors.     

Bericht über die Jahrestagung 2005 „Bildung für Eliten — Bildung für das Volk. Zur Aktualität eines alten Themas der Moderne“

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Ein Experiment zum Einfluss der Situation auf physische und psychische N?he

Zusammenfassung In einem Experiment (N = 90) wurde der Einfluss situativer Bedingungen auf den Sitzabstand und auf die per Fragebogen erfasste subjektiv erlebte N?he zu einer anderen Person überprüft. Es wurden eine Kooperationsbedingung, eine neutrale Bedingung und eine Wettbewerbsbedingung realisiert. Es zeigte sich, dass die neutrale Bedingung die geringste r?umliche N?he hervorrief, w?hrend die Kooperationsbedingung die h?chste emotionale N?he ausl?ste. Zur Interpretation wird die Annahme vertreten, dass die neutrale Bedingung sich von der Wettbewerbsbedingung darin unterscheidet, dass sie von den Probanden als irrelevant empfunden wird und dadurch keine Aufmerksamkeitszuwendung auf die andere Person ausl?st. Weiterhin wird angenommen, dass emotionale N?he das Ergebnis von positiver Atmosph?re und Relevanz der Interaktion ist. Eine weitere Fragestellung bezog sich auf den Zusammenhang zwischen (geringem) Sitzabstand und emotionaler N?he, der in übereinstimmung mit Studien zur Einstellungs-Verhaltens-Konsistenz relativ gering ausfiel.

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The influence of the social situation on the physical distance and, as measured by a questionnaire, emotional intimacy between participants was experimentally studied (N = 90) in a cooperative, a competitive, and a neutral social situation. Results indicate that the physical distance was greatest under neutral conditions. The cooperative condition produced the strongest feeling of intimacy. It is argued that the neutral condition is irrelevant to the participants’ behaviour and level of attention to other persons. Further, intimacy can only arise if an interaction is both positive and relevant. The correlation between physical and emotional distance turned out to be relatively small, in accordance with the range usually given for attitudebehaviour correlations.

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PD Dr. Ina Grau, Dipl. Psych., Universit?t Bielefeld, Fakult?t für Soziologie, Lehrstuhl Sozialpsychologie, Prof. Dr. Hans-Werner Bierhoff, Dipl. Psych., Ruhr-Universit?t Bochum, Fakult?t für Psychologie, Lehrstuhl Sozialpsychologie