GRK 2271:  Expectation Maintenance vs. Change in the Context of Expectation Violations: Connecting Different Approaches

• Subject Area: Psychology
• Term: since 2017
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 290878970

Expectations permanently shape, modulate and accompany human experience and behavior. In order to be able to adapt them successfully to environmental requirements, we have to change expectations depending on our experience. Many phenomena in psychology, however, are characterized in particular by the fact that violated expectations are not or only insufficiently corrected: Stereotypes and prejudices are maintained, phobias resist extinction, and performance expectations remain inadequate. In the first RTG funding phase, we investigated expectancy change in different basic and applied fields of psychology and refined our integrative model of expectancy change and persistence in close interdisciplinary collaboration. In the second funding phase, our evolved model will enable us not only to investigate phenomena of expectancy change and persistence in depth within different subdisciplines, but above all to address new questions from different subprojects in a converging manner even better and thus to arrive at a deeper general understanding of the phenomenon of expectancy change and persistence. This approach will further enhance a central feature of the RTG, namely to promote interdisciplinarity within psychology. PhD students will learn to (1) transcend the boundaries of their respective psychological subdisciplines and thus contribute to a more holistic understanding of psychology. Based on our experience from the first funding period, we will further deepen and expand (2) demand-oriented supportive supervision, (3) sustainable internationalization strategies, (4) the promotion of autonomy and responsibility in the scientific system, and (5) the scientific and social infrastructure on site, in the second funding phase. The Department of Psychology at the UMR with its scientists involved in this RTG enjoys an excellent international reputation and offers PhD students outstanding research opportunities and academic development conditions. The substantial number of doctorates completed as well as disciplinarily relevant and interdisciplinary publications (despite the COVID-19 crisis) document the success to date.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Philipps-Universität Marburg
• Participating Researchers: Dr. Pia von Blanckenburg; Professorin Dr. Hanna Christiansen; Professor Dr. Christopher Cohrs; Professor Dominik M. Endres, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Daniel Heck; Dr. Christiane Melzig; Professor Dr. Erik M. Müller; Professor Dr. Martin Pinquart; Professor Winfried Rief, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Anna Schubö; Professor Dr. Alexander Christian Schütz; Professor Dr. Markus Wöhr; Dr. Metin Üngör
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Sarah Teige-Mocigemba, since 4/2022