Research focus

The department’s research focuses on the interaction between psychosocial working conditions and employees’ health, motivation, and personality development - particularly in light of emerging changes in the world of work. We examine how work and its specific characteristics shape, support, or hinder individual development, as well as how employees themselves actively influence this process and the design of their work.

Our key themes are:

• Work design and its impact on employees
• Ambivalent effects of autonomy
• Mechanisms and boundary conditions of work-related stress
• Development of new measures and methods and the investigation of practical problems:
  • Risk assessment of psychological stress: procedures and methods
  • Health-promoting interventions, work analysis, and work design
  • Hybrid Work
  • Flexible, new forms of work
  • Interaction between work, other life domains, and recovery

Work Analysis and Work Design

• DIAS: AI-based adaptive dialogue for assessing psychological strain (Dialogue-based Assessment DIAS), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS)
• Methods for assessing the risk of psychological strain:
  • Measuring psychological strain at work: Questionnaire to Measure Psychological Strain (FGBU)
  • Usefulness and limitations as well as threshold values of questionnaires (Project PROGRESS, funded by VBG, BG RCI and BG ETEM)
• Implementation of design measures (ProEVAL project): longitudinal study on factors impacting the success and effectiveness of psychological risk assessments (funded by BG RCI and VBG)
• Effect and effect sizes of workplace design interventions

Psychological Stress at Work for Specific Target Groups

• Psychological Stress and Coping Mechanisms of neurodivergent employees
• PREVENT & RETURN. Psychological stress among working pregnant and breastfeeding women: development of risk assessments and preventive return-to-work strategies (funded by BMAS)

Ambivalent Effects of Flexible and Autonomous Work

• Flexible working hours and locations
  • Hybrid Work (Projects DigiTeam and DigiLead)
  • Constant/extended availability (Project „Availability – well designed!“)
• Flexible forms of management
  • Self-designed work / Job Crafting
  • Ambivalent effects of autonomy
  • Interested Self-Endangerment
  • Work design competence/ Job Crafting preparation

• Project Usefulness and limitations as well as threshold values of questionnaires (PROGRESS) | more in german
• DigiProjects - Hybrid Work (DIGI Teams and DIGI LEAD) | more in germen
• Hagen Matrices Test (HMT) | more in germen
• Longitudinal Study of Individuals and Teams in Entrepreneurship (LITE-Project) | more
• BMBF project EngAGE. | more in german
• BMBF project "Lebenszeit 4.0" | more in germen