University of Siegen
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Publication Access status: Open Access , Lifestories Across the Lifespan: Meaning, Well-being, and Methodological Issues(2025)Comprehensive Overview This dissertation starts with a theoretical section that is composed of general foundations and reflections about the fundamental concepts and analytical models. The second chapter presents own but attended research which is framed by these essential thoughts. The general discussion reconsiders seminal conclusions, critically disputes the overall outcomes, and elaborates on research questions that emerged from the findings in view of posterior knowledge of this work. Research Activity and Empirical Studies with Reference to this Dissertation (1) A review article presents comprehensive reflections about age-graded interventions that are evident from research on reminiscence and aging, the results are reflected within their respective conceptual and empirical context. Presentation of meta-analytical findings and evidence from a random controlled trial (RCT). (2) Experimental RCT in trauma analogue paradigm explores three brief interventions in a psychopathology model with zero result. Evidence of optimal model complexity on: measurements, choice of outcomes, external validity. Statistical analyses use (a) General Linear Model (GLM) and (b) Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM) within Generalized Equation Estimations (GEE). (3) Temporal framing is studied in a cross-sectional correlational design. The analytical model evaluates measures of well-being and life quality whether they are predictive of a balanced time perspective. Accuracy is externally assessed by cross-validation and ranges in the upper percentile of correct predictions of balancedness. Adding the present time to the model raises the quota of explained variance, showing that time perspective (TP) has a three-dimensional structure. The usage of compound indices incrementally increases fit, suggesting that the metric indicators outperform the originating scales. Furthermore, the results propose a differentiated indication of their usage, depending on whether measuring absence or proximity is the objective. Methodological considerations ought to prioritize establishing a vague prior on even baserates which is precedent in classification tasks. Subjective well-being varies between balanced and unbalanced observations. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) applies. Conclusion The recognition of self-reflective sameness creates a lifestory of purpose, coherence and meaning. Autobiographical reasoning operates a variety of cognitive-emotional processes, whereby reminiscence and time perception are important.Source Type:Doctoral Thesis1 12 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Blended Mobile-Based Interventions With Integrated Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Anxiety Disorders: Thematic Analysis of Patient PerspectivesBackground: Guided mobile-based interventions may mitigate symptoms of anxiety disorders such as panic disorder, agoraphobia, or social anxiety disorder. With exposure therapy being efficacious in traditional treatments for these isorders, recent advancements have introduced 360° videos to deliver virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) within mobile-based interventions. Objective: Despite ongoing trials evaluating the treatment’s efficacy, research examining patient perceptions of this innovative approach is still scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to explore patient opinions on specific treatment aspects of mobile-based interventions using mobile VRET and psychotherapeutic guidance for anxiety disorders. Methods: A total of 11 patients diagnosed with panic disorder, agoraphobia, or social anxiety disorder who had previously taken part in the experimental conditions of 2 randomized controlled trials for a mobile intervention including mobile VRET participated in cross-sectional, retrospective interviews. Using a semistructured interview format, patients were asked to reflect on their treatment experiences; personal changes; helpful and hindering aspects; their motivation levels; and their encounters with the mobile-based intervention, manualized treatment sessions, and the mobile VRET. Results: Thematic analysis led to the formation of 14 themes in four superordinate categories: (1) perceived treatment outcomes, (2) aspects of the mobile intervention, (3) experiences with mobile VRET, and (4) contextual considerations. Patients offered their insights into factors contributing to treatment success or failure, delineated perceived treatment outcomes, and highlighted favorable aspects of the treatment while pointing out shortcomings and suggesting potential enhancements. Most strikingly, while using a blended app-based intervention, patients highlighted the role of psychotherapeutic guidance as a central contributing factor to their symptom improvement. Conclusions: The findings of the thematic analysis and its diverse patient perspectives hold the potential to guide future research to improve mobile-based treatment options for anxiety disorders. Insights from these patient experiences can contribute to refining mobile-based interventions and optimizing the integration of VRET in accordance with patients’ preferences, needs, and expectations.Source Type:ArticleDOI:10.2196/609575 7 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Psychophysiologische und subjektive Korrelate aversiver und appetitiver Reizverarbeitung im Menschen und die Rolle interindividueller Unterschiede(2024-10-15)This dissertation focuses on inter-individual differences in the processing of aversive and appetitive stimuli. Approaches for clinical interventions can be developed based on the associations between deviations in stimulus processing and mental health. In this dissertation, three central processes of stimulus processing were examined: the cognitive processing of emotional stimuli, biases of which are associated with the development of depression, affective learning, which is often used as a model for addictive disorders, and the reaction to acute stress stimuli as a relevant influencing factor for the development of many clinical conditions. Special consideration was given to the role of habitual anxiety coping, as a repressive coping style is associated with an increased prevalence of numerous stress-related illnesses. To investigate these factors, three elaborate studies were conducted in which various physiological measures such as electrodermal activity and cardiac activity, subjective ratings and implicit measures of cognitive biases were used. The results indicate that inter-individual differences play a role in all the stimulus processing steps considered. Study I showed that habitual anxiety coping can influence automatic action tendencies towards positive stimuli, with repressors showing an increased approach tendency. This suggests that cognitive biases may be maladaptive in principle and not only to negative stimuli. Study II showed that appetitive conditioning can lead to comparable cardiac CRs as aversive conditioning and thus provide a new peripheral physiological measure of CRs in appetitive conditioning paradigms. Furthermore, the study provided evidence for a relationship between appetitive and aversive CRs on a subjective, but not on a physiological level. In Study III, no altered stress response known from repressors in the form of a weakened subjective stress perception and an increased physiological stress response could be observed under non-social stress. This indicates that this reaction could possibly be triggered primarily by social stress. Overall, the results provide evidence that inter-individual differences may play a role in emotional stimulus processing. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.Source Type:Doctoral Thesis3 4 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Intensive smoking cessation treatment as an adjunct to concurrent psychotherapy: study protocol for a randomized controlled trialTobacco use is globally recognized by the World Health Organization as the foremost risk factor for premature mortality. Individuals with mental disorders exhibit a notably heightened dependence on tobacco, approximately twice as high as that of the general population. The long-term effects of nicotine consumption include an exacerbation of depressive symptoms and a decline in mental health, which can be considered additional risk factors for the vulnerable population of smokers with preexisting mental disorders. Successful smoking cessation is associated with an increase in mental health, comparable or superior to that of pharmacological antidepressant treatments. However, smoking is frequently disregarded within the realm of psychotherapeutic care, unlike in the treatment of other substance use disorders. Smoking may hinder patients' recovery and responsiveness to psychotherapy, potentially distorting improvements in symptom severity or negative affect. Integrating smoking cessation initiatives into standard psychotherapeutic interventions thus holds significant potential and may be considered essential for long-term mental health. The current study's objective is to assess the potential of a guideline-based smoking cessation intervention within an outpatient psychotherapeutic setting concerning changes in smoking intensity, nicotine dependence, and mental health outcomes among patients with a mental disorder adjunct to concurrent psychotherapy. This trial aims to bridge the gap between the state of research in light of evidence of the positive effects of successful smoking cessation and the actual practical provision of care in Germany.Source Type:Article2 16 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Appetitive conditioning with pornographic stimuli elicits stronger activation in reward regions than monetary and gaming‐related stimuliAppetitive conditioning plays an important role in the development and maintenance of pornography-use and gaming disorders. It is assumed that primary and secondary reinforcers are involved in these processes. Despite the common use of pornography and gaming in the general population appetitive conditioning processes in this context are still not well studied. This study aims to compare appetitive conditioning processes using primary (pornographic) and secondary (monetary and gaming-related) rewards as unconditioned stimuli (UCS) in the general population. Additionally, it investigates the conditioning processes with gaming-related stimuli as this type of UCS was not used in previous studies. Thirty-one subjects participated in a differential conditioning procedure in which four geometric symbols were paired with either pornographic, monetary, or gaming-related rewards or with nothing to become conditioned stimuli (CS + porn, CS + game, CS + money, and CS−) in an functional magnetic resonance imaging study. We observed elevated arousal and valence ratings as well as skin conductance responses for each CS+ condition compared to the CS−. On the neural level, we found activations during the presentation of the CS + porn in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, right medial orbitofrontal cortex, and the right ventral anterior cingulate cortex compared to the CS−, but no significant activations during CS + money and CS + game compared to the CS−. These results indicate that different processes emerge depending on whether primary and secondary rewards are presented separately or together in the same experimental paradigm. Additionally, monetary and gaming-related stimuli seem to have a lower appetitive value than pornographic rewards.Source Type:Article3 12 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Nicotine-related interpretation biases in cigarette smoking individualsAddictive behaviors are characterized by information processing biases, including substance-related interpretation biases. In the field of cigarette smoking, such biases have not been investigated yet. The present study thus adopted an open-ended scenario approach to measure smoking-related interpretation biases. Individuals who smoke, those who ceased smoking, and those without a smoking history (total sample N = 177) were instructed to generate spontaneous continuations for ambiguous, open-ended scenarios that described either a smoking-related or neutral context. Overall, people who smoke generated more smoking-related continuations in response to smoking-relevant situations than non-smoking individuals or people who had stopped smoking, providing evidence for a smoking-related interpretation bias. When differentiating for situation type within smoking-relevant scenarios, smoking individuals produced more smoking-related continuations for positive/social and habit/addictive situations compared to negative/affective ones. Additionally, the tendency to interpret habit/addictive situations in a smoking-related manner was positively associated with cigarette consumption and levels of nicotine dependence. Exploratory analyses indicated that other substance-related continuations were correlated with their respective behavioral counterparts (e.g., the level of self-reported alcohol or caffeine consumption). The present study is the first to demonstrate smoking-related interpretation biases in relation to current cigarette smoking. Future studies should investigate the causal role of such biases in the initiation and/or maintainance of nicotine addiction and the merit of Interpretation-Bias-Modification training to support smoking cessation.Source Type:Article3 8 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Motive kollegialen Helfens – Entwicklung und Validierung eines psychometrischen Fragebogens(2025-03-17)Kollegiale Hilfe nimmt eine zentrale Rolle im Konzept des Organisationalen Citizenship Behavior (OCB) ein, da dieser ein hoher Stellenwert für das effektive Funktionieren einer Organisation beigemessen wird und mit positiven Konsequenzen für die Akteure und das Team assoziiert ist. Vergleichsweise wenig Aufmerksamkeit wird bisher den Motiven gewidmet, aus denen Hilfeverhalten am Arbeitsplatz erfolgt. Die Arbeit liefert einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der Forschung und zeigt messtheoretische Probleme existierender Fragebögen auf. Basierend auf der Theorie prosozialen Verhaltens von Batson (2011) wird hergeleitet, dass kollegialem Helfen altruistische, prosoziale, egoistische und reziproke Motive zugrunde liegen können. Damit wird ein integrierender Rahmen für die Vielzahl existierender theoretischer Ansätze der Motive kollegialen Helfens begründet. Zur Messung dieser Motive wird ein psychometrischer Fragebogen nach Klassischer Testtheorie (KTT) entwickelt und die Validierung mehrdimensionaler Forced-Choice-Items (MFC-Items) exploriert. Dieser ermöglicht eine valide Messung dieser Motive für die Durchführung zukünftiger empirischer Studien. Erste Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass dieser geeignet ist, einen Beitrag zur Erklärung potenziell negativer Konsequenzen kollegialen Hilfeverhaltens leisten zu können.Source Type:Dissertation1 2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Motive kollegialen Helfens – Entwicklung und Validierung eines psychometrischen Fragebogens(2025)Helping in the workplace plays a central role in the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). It is considered to be of great importance for the effective functioning of an organization as a whole and associated with positive consequences for the individuals and the team. Comparatively little attention has so far been paid to the motives behind helping behavior in the workplace. This dissertation provides an overview of the current state of research and an evaluation of existing psychometric questionnaires. Based on Batson´s (2011) theory of prosocial behavior, it proposes altruistic, prosocial, egoistic and reciprocal motives as relevant motives for helping in the workplace. This provides an integrating framework for existing theoretical approaches to the motives of collegial helping. To measure these motives, a psychometric questionnaire was developed based on normative items (according to classical test theory) and multidimensional forced-choice items (MFC items). The questionnaire provides a valid instrument for measuring these motives in future research. Initial studies indicate that it is suitable for contributing to the explanation of potentially negative consequences.Source Type:Doctoral Thesis3 8 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Nosferatu-Spinne in Deutschland – Warum haben wir Angst vor Spinnen?(2024); Many people are afraid of spiders. In Germany, including Siegen-Wittgenstein, the so-called Nosferatu spider (scientific name: Zoropsis spinimana) continues to spread. Even though this spider, originally native to the Mediterranean region, is usually not dangerous to humans, many people are afraid of the Nosferatu spider. But why are so many people scared of animals, especially spiders? And what exactly are feelings such as fear and anxiety? How can individuals who are affected overcome these unpleasant feelings? Can psychotherapy help, and how does psychotherapy work for anxiety and fear? Dr. Matthias Sperl, psychotherapist at the University of Siegen, answers these questions in a radio interview with radio host Max Schepp on Radio Siegen.Source Type:Other3 6 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Entwicklung und Validierung eines Ambidextrie Führungsmodells - Ambidextre Führung in der öffentlichen Verwaltung(2024)Angress-Pletsch, SimoneOrganizations that are both successful in managing their current core business (exploitation) and in innovately shaping their future (exploration) are considered ambidextrous. Ambidexterity research deals with the question of how organizations, managers and individuals handle competing, contradictory or irreconcilable goals and deal constructively with the associated tensions. The unpredictable developments and crises of recent years, such as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, have once again shown that all organizations have to deal with conflicting goals, uncertainty and paradoxes. Numerous studies have confirmed the positive effects of ambidexterity on the success parameters of organizations and attribute a major influence on the ambidexterity capability of their organisations to managers. However, there is a lack of scientific operationalisations that break down the theoretical construct of ambidexterity into observable leadership behaviours. The aim of this quantitative research project was to develop and test an ambidextrous leadership model for effective leadership behaviour that is as concrete and action-guiding as possible. Based on proven theories from organizational, leadership and psychological research, it should provide concrete starting points on how managers can balance the different requirements of the core business and shaping the future, take on different roles and priorities depending on the contextual requirements, make necessary decisions and constructively manage contradictions and tensions with a both/and mindset. As an operationalisation of the leadership model, an assessment was constructed and empirically validated as a measuring instrument so that leadership behaviour can be observed, reflected upon, discussed and further developed on this basis. Both the leadership model and the assessment have been used in a large German authority, the Federal Employment Agency, since the beginning of 2022. Initial group comparisons have shown that the Ambidextrie leadership model can also be transferred to managers in other organizations and sectors.Source Type:Doctoral Thesis8 12
