Abteilung Psychologie

In particular, we want to investigate the mechanisms of action between sleep, stress and mental health in adolescents and young adults with sleep problems. Participation is exclusively online and conveniently from home/on the move. For some of the participants, we offer a sleep training programme to test the effects on sleep. Participation in the study will be remunerated accordingly.

Adolescents and young adults can participate if

• they are between 16 and 21 years old
• they regularly suffer from problems falling asleep and/or sleeping through the night or early morning awakenings
• they are free to determine their own bedtimes
• they go to bed at relatively normal times, i.e. not extremely early/late
• they have sufficient knowledge of German to be able to understand the questionnaires and instructions well.

Homepage of the project ending date

Physical activity, regulation of the autonomic nervous system, sleep and affective well-being

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Sakari Lemola

Justin Hachenberger

 

Physical activity, and sport in particular, has a favourable effect on affective well-being. We are investigating various forms of physical activity that can be easily integrated into everyday life. We are particularly interested in the question of whether it plays a role who is physically active, when, how intensively, in what context and in what way. We consider the regulation of the autonomic nervous system and the quality of sleep as mediating variables. In addition to the mediating role of sleep, we are also investigating the direct correlations between various sleep parameters and affective well-being. We investigate these questions in studies with intensive longitudinal design (ILD) and ambulatory measurement (Ecological Momentary Assessment, accelerometry and electrocardiography).

Project management:

Prof Dr Sakari Lemola

Dr Robert Eves

This research project focuses on the developmental causes of mental health and cognitive abilities. The long-term consequences of risk factors such as prematurity and low birth weight as well as protective factors such as a positive parent-child relationship are analysed. To this end, we analyse data sets from cohort, panel, population register and twin studies.

Beteiligte Forscher*innen:

Prof. Dr. Heike Eschenbeck, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd

Prof. Dr. Carl-Walter Kohlmann, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Universität Bielefeld

Dr. Juliane Schlesier, Universität Oldenburg

Prof. Dr. Diana Raufelder, Universität Greifswald

 

Auf Grundlage des Fragebogens zur Erhebung von Stress und Stressbewältigung im Kindes und Jugendalter (SSKJ 3-8-R; Lohaus, Eschenbeck, Kohlmann & Klein-Heßling, 2018), welcher für die beiden oberen Grundschuljahrgänge sowie das untere Sekundarschulalter konzipiert ist, soll ein Inventar zur Erfassung von Stresserleben und Stressbewältigung im Vor- und Grundschulalter (SSKJ-mini) entwickelt und validiert werden. Da Vorschulkinder und Grundschulkinder der ersten und zweiten Klassen sich in ihren kognitiven Fähigkeiten und ihrer Konzentrationsfähigkeit von Kindern ab Klasse 3 unterscheiden, werden die Fragen in eine Interviewform überführt und altersgerecht angepasst. Weiterhin wird der SSKJ-mini-Fragebogen insgesamt deutlich kürzer gehalten als der SSKJ. Dazu wird in Teil 2 (Stressbewältigung) nur eine Situation (von zwei) aus dem SSKJ 3-8 übernommen und die Antwortmöglichkeiten werden an das untere Grundschulalter angepasst. In Teil 1 (Stress) und 3 (Wohlbefinden) werden die Fragen hinsichtlich der Formulierung und des Inhalts vereinfacht und einige Fragen werden herausgenommen. Da die Kinder in den jeweiligen Institutionen der Vorschule und Grundschule in unterschiedliche Kontexte eingebunden sind und entsprechend unterschiedlichen Anforderungen/Stressoren ausgesetzt sind, werden zwei verschiedene Versionen des SSKJ-mini erstellt: eine Version für Vorschulkinder (SSKJ-mini-V) und eine Version für Grundschüler:innen (SSKJ-mini-G). Die neuen Fragebogenversionen sollen validiert werden und es sollen weiterhin Normdaten erstellt werden.

 

Project Management

Lena Maas, Bielefeld University

Dr. Jana-Elisa Rüth, Bielefeld University

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Bielefeld University

Cooperation Partner

Prof. Dr. Claire P. Monks, Greenwich University

Persons Involved

Nicolas Egerding, Dania Sielemann, Johanna Wadowski, Jonas Wagener

 

The role of resources in child development has been extensively documented. This study aims to investigate the relationships between resources, emotional competences, psychosocial adjustment, and well-being in two samples in Germany and the United Kingdom. As part of this, the English versions of the "Process-Oriented Emotion Regulation Measure for Children and Adolescents" (POEM-CA) and the "Questionnaire to Assess Resources in Childhood and Adolescence" (QARCA) will be validated for the first time in an English-speaking sample. The data will also be used to analyse differences between young people from Germany and the UK in terms of their resources, emotional competences, psychosocial adjustment and well-being.

Consent form and counselling centres

Project Management

Dr. Jana-Elisa Rüth, Universität Bielefeld

Persons Involved

Students in the Research-Oriented Internship (FoPrak Psychology)

 

Previous research emphasizes the importance of parental behavior for the emotional development of their children. This study examines the importance of parental attitudes towards their own and others' emotions, their specific reactions to the child's emotions, and the general emotional family climate for children's emotional competence. Parents of elementary school children are surveyed in an online study.

A training for parents of elementary school children

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Research Assistants

Lena Döring, B.Sc. Psych., Universität Bielefeld

Stephanie Wagner, B.Sc. Psych., Universität Bielefeld

Lena Maas, M.Sc. Psych., Universität Bielefeld

 

Parents play an important role in the emotional development of their children. The parenting program „Tuning in to Kids“ (TIK), developed at the University of Melbourne and tested for the first time in Germany, aims to provide parents with the best possible support in helping their children develop various emotional competencies. In six weekly group sessions, the program focuses on recognizing one's own emotions and those of the children, as well as on understanding and coping with emotions. Based on this, parents' reactions to children's emotions in particular will be explored in everyday situations. Within the framework of this research project, TIK is offered to parents of primary school children and its training effects are empirically investigated.

Empowering youth in care and preventing (re-)victimization

Funded Applicants

Prof. Dr. Kerstin Konrad, Uniklinik RWTH Aachen

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Bielefeld University

PhD Student

Sophia Dunkel, M.Sc. Bielefeld University

 

Funding

Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Funding period: 04/2019- 07/2022

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Many children and adolescents placed in foster or adoption families have experienced bullying and violence or abuse. These early experiences can impair the mental health of these children and adolescents and increase the risk of a prospective (re-)victimization. The main purpose of the project EMPOWERYOU is to help foster and adoption families as well as the children and adolescents taken care of to cope with traumatic events, and to counteract the potential risk of future victimization.

The sub-project carried out in Bielefeld focuses on factors that could increase the risk of (re-)victimization experiences, with an emphasis on previous bullying experiences of the children and adolescents. The results obtained from this sub-project should provide a basis for future intervention programs, developed in other sub-projects of EMPOWERYOU.

The project ist completed.

Project Management

Dr. Jana-Elisa Rüth, Universität Bielefeld

Persons Involved

Verena Allerbeck, Nele Niedermeyer, Johanna Rehm, Sarah Thießen

 

How do children cope with experiencing fear, anger, sadness or joy? What do they do to overcome unpleasant feelings or to enhance positive experiences? How can we support them in this at an early stage and thus prepare them for emotionally challenging situations? These are the questions we are addressing in our research on emotion regulation. At Bielefeld University, a training program has been developed to help children learn to understand their own feelings and the feelings of others, how feelings can be expressed, and how to influence feelings in a positive direction. The training consists of six weekly sessions. The training consists of six weekly sessions. Before and after the training, a number of questionnaires are completed in order to examine any changes that may have occurred as a result of the training.

The project ist completed.

The Role of Emotion Regulation, Stress, and Coping

Project Management

Dr. Jana-Elisa Rüth, Universität Bielefeld

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Universität Bielefeld

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has faced us with numerous challenges over the past two years and the related stress is still an integral part of our daily lives. Children and adolescents in particular have experienced serious restrictions and reduced well-being and more behavioral problems in this age group have been reported. However, little is known about the long-term effects of the pandemic on mental health and there is a great need for longitudinal research in this field. In this study, we examine possible changes over time. In particular, we are interested in developments of emotion regulation, stress and coping, mental health, well-being, and the perceived pandemic related stress. Our aim is to examine how children and adolescents cope with the challenges in the long term.

In the first year of the pandemic, children and adolescents in grades 5 to 10 participated in a scientific survey as part of the research project "POEM-CA – Process-oriented Emotion Regulation Measurement in Childhood and Adolescence" (subproject 2). In this study, a follow-up survey of these participants is now being implemented, allowing for an examination of long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project ist completed.

 

Process-oriented Emotion Regulation Measurement in Childhood and Adolescence

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Project Management

Dr. Jana-Elisa Rüth, Universität Bielefeld

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Universität Bielefeld

The appropriate handling of one's own emotions is a central developmental task in childhood and adolescence. Persisting problems in solving and dealing with this task can be a significant risk for social and emotional development. Since children do not yet have a mature and consolidated repertoire of emotion regulation strategies, they are particularly at risk for using inappropriate strategies. An early assessment of emotion regulation competencies is therefore important in order to detect and counteract possible deficits. In this context, self-reports are of great value, as children and adolescents are the most important observers of their own emotional world. Our research project "POEM-KJ - Process-oriented Emotion Regulation Measurement in Childhood and Adolescence" aims at developing a new questionnaire to assess emotion regulation of children and adolescents via self-report. Additionally, associations of emotion regulation with different aspects of healthy development (e.g., well-being, emotional problems, behavioral problems, prosocial behavior, emotional awareness, somatic complaints) will be investigated.

The surveys of children and adolescents in grades 3 to 10 will be realized in three subprojects: In subproject 1, a single survey of the students will be conducted during one school lesson. In subproject 2, the parents of all participating children and adolescents are also asked to fill out a questionnaire at home and return it to us by mail in reply-paid envelope. Furthermore, two assessments with students will be conducted in selected classes at school. In subproject 3, a single survey of the students takes place, with the aim of comparing a short version of the POEM-KJ with the long version.

The project ist completed.

Mental Health of Young Refugees: A Longitudinal Study across a Two-Year-Interval

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Funded Applicants

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Universität Bielefeld

Prof. Dr. Heike Eschenbeck, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd

Funding

Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Funding period: 04/2018- 03/2022

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Within the frame of the Consortium YOURHEALTH project "Stress, Health and Integration of Young Refugees: Discovering the Interrelations and Improving Access to Healthcare" a sub - project will be carried out in cooperation with the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd (Prof. Dr. Heike Eschenbeck). The main aim of this research project is to analyse the developmental trajectory of young refugees in their new environment after their arrival in Germany. The second aim is to identify risk factors and resources that support or impede adjustment processes.

The project ist completed.

Stress sensitivity and sleep in adolescents

Funded applicants

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Bielefeld University

Prof. Dr. Angelika Schlarb, University of Bielefeld

Staff

M.Sc. Maren-Jo Kater, Bielefeld University

M.Sc. Anika Werner, Bielefeld University

Funding

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) Funding period: 11/2018-06/2022

Many adolescents report sleep problems and sleep disorders. As a result, concentration difficulties, school problems, problems with emotion control as well as daytime sleepiness can occur, which shows the importance of the topic. Furthermore, the stress experience of young people is also related to sleep. For this reason, the #teen.sleep.stress project wants to examine various stress parameters in adolescents with and without insomnia (problems falling asleep and staying asleep) in order to be able to investigate stress responsiveness. Since sleep disorders often persist into adulthood, the stability of different stress and sleep indicators over time will also be examined.

The project is divided into three measurements, the first of which has been running since August 2019. Approximately 200 adolescents and their families will be interviewed about sleep problems and various forms of stressors. The other two measurements will take place six months and twelve months later. The same participants will be interviewed again. The study participants are between 11 and 17 years old.

 

Supervision

Prof. Dr. Arnold Lohaus, Universität Bielefeld

M.Sc. Anika Werner, Universität Bielefeld

Persons Involved

Kira Essing and Laura Koch

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More and more infants show sleep problems or even sleep disorders. This can be particularly problematic in view of the fact that these problems often persist into adolescence. The children's ability to sooth themselves seems to play an important role in this. For this reason, final theses should bridge the gap between the child's sleep and the self-soothing behavior in infants. In addition, various parental factors are collected. The project is a continuation and extension of the study "Sleep in infancy and self-soothing behavior" conducted between November 2018 and April 2019. Parents of infants aged between 3 months and 3 years are to be interviewed again on the above-mentioned topics. The measurement and observation of sleep (e.g. via actigraphy and video recordings) is also part of the project.

The project ist completed.

Development of a primary prevention program to improve the parent-child relationship and support the development of children at the age of 24 to 36 months.

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This project aims at designing and developing a new group program to promote mental health in children, in order to meet the increasing need for prevention concepts and health promotion in the U-3 sector while addressing a broad range of parents. As a first step, a new program was developed for day care settings, which is now implemented in day care centres through the AOK. Currently, Joko, you and I is accommodated for individual prevention, in order to provide a program for U-3 parents outside of day care centres. In a next step, a new module for day-care workers will be developed and evaluated.

The project ist comleted.

Explaining cross-informant discrepancies concerning internalizing and externalizing problematic behaviour of children and adolescents

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When asking different people (e.g. children and their parents) to judge the problematic behaviour of a child, they often come to very different estimations. Notable differences between self-report and reports by others make it hard to integrate different perspectives and may lead to considerable problems in research and application (e.g. when determining prevalence rates of mental disorders or setting goals for therapy). Even if cross-informant discrepancies constitute one of the most stable effects in clinical research, not much is known about possible influencing factors. The research project eXid aims at identifying determinants of cross-informant discrepancies regarding internalising and externalising problematic behaviour, in order to help explain their origins. The underlying integrative framework, which combines approaches from Cognitive and Social Psychology (e.g. Attribution Bias Context Model, Social Relations Model), as well as Clinical Psychology (e.g. Depression Distortion Hypothesis) under developmental aspects, will be validated using a questionnaire-based approach. By combining cross-sectional and longitudinal data (cohort-sequential method) from children and adolescents from 5th to 9th grade, a broad dataset has already been gained in the first project phase (until 06/2016). Based on this data, essential content-related and methodological questions of the research project will be examined.

The project ist completed.

The foster family study GROW&TREAT focuses on the development of foster children who have experienced neglect and maltreatment. The study consists of two parts: a longitudinal study (GROW) and an intervention study (TREAT). Foster parents and their foster children as well as families and their children will be questioned. More information about the foster family study can be found at www.grow-and-treat.de.

Development of infants from families with different levels of adversity

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The German Youth Institute (DJI) and the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA), as supporter of the National Centre for Early Intervention (NZFH), were engaged to scientifically monitor the "Federal Initiative for Early Support and Family Midwifes 2012-2015" (Bundesinitiative Frühe Hilfen und Familienhebammen 2012-2015). An in-depth study (ESKAB) was conducted on the prevalence of psychosocial risks in families with infants in Germany, with a special focus on mechanisms and effects on the development of the infants. The objective of this study is to derive recommendations from the results for a permanent fund solution from 2016 on. This study examines the relation between familial developmental conditions, parental caring behaviour and the course of development of the child, by applying a longitudinal cohort design on families with children at the age of 0 to 3 years. The impact of familial risk factors on the development of the child can thereby affect different domains of development and can occur through different processes. It is therefore crucial to know the age specific mechanisms and mediating processes that make the familial risk become the risk of the child, to offer accurate intervention and prevention programs. In order to investigate these processes adequately, the development of different functional areas on the one hand as well as individual characteristics of children and parents and social support through parental behaviour on the other hand are examined.

Im Rahmen von mehreren aufeinanderfolgenden Studien sollten Auswirkungen von elektronischen Unterhaltungsmedien auf verschiedene psychologische und physiologische Faktoren bei Kindern und Jugendlichen untersucht werden.

Zunächst sollte es in einem ersten Schritt darum gehen, inwieweit der Umgang mit Fernsehen und Computerspielen bei Kindern und Jugendlichen zu Stress führt. Dieser wurde zum einen mittels objektiver physiologischer Parameter (Herzrate, Herzratenvariabilität, Cortisol, Alpha-Amylase) erfasst, zum anderen schätzten die Probanden ihr Empfinden und emotionales Erleben während der Beschäftigung mit den Medien subjektiv ein. Es wurde vermutet, dass es zwischen verschiedenen Medienarten (Computerspiele vs. Fernsehen) und Genres (emotionsinduzierend / gewalthaltig vs. neutral / nicht gewalthaltig) zu Differenzen hinsichtlich der physiologischen Aktivierung und des subjektiven Empfindens kommt. Es wurde systematisch untersucht, ob und in welchem Ausmaß diese Unterschiede tatsächlich auftreten. Des Weiteren sollte eine Überprüfung der Übereinstimmung der objektiven physiologischen Kennwerte und der subjektiven Angaben erfolgen.

In weiteren Studien sollten die Auswirkungen der mit dem Medienkonsum einhergehenden physiologischen und psychologischen Veränderungen auf kognitive Leistungen untersucht werden. Aus der bisherigen Forschung ist bekannt, dass sich Stress und emotionales Erleben auf Lernleistungen, Gedächtnisbildung und die Aufmerksamkeit auswirken können. Der Frage, ob auch die Beschäftigung mit Unterhaltungsmedien bei Kindern und Jugendlichen zu derartigen Veränderungen führen kann, und ob das Lernen und die Wissenskonsolidierung dadurch evtl. beeinträchtigt werden, soll in mehreren Untersuchungen nachgegangen werden.

The project ist completed.

This project aims at testing explanations for gender differences in reports of physical and psychological symptoms, which have been widely documented in the research literature. The focus of this study lies on children and adolescents. A different sensitivity in perception of stimuli as well as the gender role orientation (feminine vs. masculine), were considered as explanatory approaches. As part of the indicated symptoms in childhood and adolescence occur due to stress, primary and secondary appraisal processes were taken into account. It was anticipated, that the gender role orientation does not only show direct links to the symptom indication, but that also indirect effects are revealed, which demonstrate that perception sensitivity as well as primary and secondary appraisal are influenced by gender role orientation. The underlying theoretical model was validated through a sample of 1500 children and adolescents from grade 4 to 9, enabling the analysis of methodological explanations for gender differences in symptom indication as well.

 

This research project was funded by the German Research Foundation and was carried out in cooperation with the Universities of Giessen, Osnabrück and Frankfurt a.M.. This project focused on the development of learning and memory performance from infancy until preschool age as well as cultural differences. A group of researchers at the University of Osnabrück conducted research on children in Cameroon, in order to compare the learning and memory performance of these children with the ones of German children. The learning behaviour of the children was examined using playful measures and was associated with the temperament, the IQ, the ability to concentrate etc. By now, this project is completed, but some works on specific topics may still be published.

Within the project SNAKE a stress prevention program for adolescents was developed and optimised, which is carried out in the school setting. Additionally, an extensive E-learning platform is available for the students. Besides the prevention project SNAKE for adolescents another stress prevention project was developed and evaluated for younger students ("Bleib locker"). In addition to that, many other research projects of the department "Developmental Psychology and Developmental Psychopathology" deal with stress in childhood and adolescence.