Developmental Psychology

Lubbers, M., Bukowski, M., Christ, O., Jaspers, E., & van Zalk, M.H.W. (Eds.) (2025). The Impact of Social Norms on Cohesion and (De)Polarization [Special issue]. Social Inclusion, 13.  https://doi.org/10.17645/si.i438

Richters, S., Shani, M., Geyer, L., van Zalk, M. H. W. (2025). Differential effects of friendship and school norms on adolescents’ defending in cyberbullying situations: A randomized school-based experiment. Journal of Youth Adolescence.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-025-02202-y

Shani, M., Berns, M., Bergen, L., Richters, S., Krämer, K., de Lede, S., & van Zalk, M. (2025). Longitudinal associations between perceived inclusivity norms and opinion polarization in adolescence. Social Inclusion, 13, Article 10122.  https://doi.org/10.17645/si.10122

Sophie de Lede has been awarded an OLB Science Award 2024 by the OLB Foundation for her master’s thesis “From Awareness to Action: Unveiling Pathways of Individual Mobilization Into Collective Action on Climate Change”. The thesis was completed in collaboration with the “Laboratory for the computational analysis of egonetworks, social cohesion, and exclusion” (COALESCE) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Every two years, the OLB Foundation awards six prizes for outstanding theses and dissertations from universities and colleges in northwestern Germany. In her thesis, Sophie examined the conditions under which people aware of anthropogenic climate change engage in collective climate action.

 Go to the OLB Foundation’s website

In collaboration with the Verein Niedersächsischer Bildungsinitiativen and funded by the Landespräventionsrat Niedersachsen:

Bergs, L.*, Liedtke, J.*, Alheraki, F., de Lede, S., Demandt, C., Kleuker, M., Krämer, K., Middendorf, W., Parlak, Ş., Shani, M., Witolla, S., & van Zalk, M. (2025). Together For Tolerance - Miteinander Füreinander. Universität Osnabrück.

For a preview, please  click here.

Our article  A global experience-sampling method study of well-being during times of crisis: The CoCo project has ranked within the top 10% of most-viewed papers published by Social and Personality Psychology Compass in 2023 and has therefore been honored as a Top Viewed Article.

Our paper  Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine has received two awards!

The International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology ( ISSEP) has honored our work with the International Best Paper Award.

Our paper ranks 8th among the Top 25 Social Science and Human Behaviuor papers published in Nature Communications last year and has thus been included in their respective  special collection.

Kotzur, P., Eckerle, F., Khosrowtaj, Z., Rothers, A., Maaser, J., Wagner, U., & van Zalk, M. H. W. (in press). Prejudice towards refugees predicts social fear of crime. British Journal of Social Psychology.

Farkhari, F., Scharbert, J., Kroencke, L., Schwarzer, C., Koch, J. F., van Zalk, M. H. W., Schlipphak, B., & Back, M. D. (2025). Right-wing authoritarianism and perceptions that minoritized groups pose a threat: The moderating roles of individual- and country-level religiosity and marginalization. British Journal of Social Psychology, 64(1), e12830.  https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12830

Shani, M., Goldberg, D., & van Zalk, M. H. W. (2025). “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Antisemitism and psychosocial health among Jews in Germany. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1499295.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1499295