Institut für Bildung, Arbeit und Gesellschaft

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hohpublica.uni-hohenheim.de/handle/123456789/28

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Change by (almost) all means: The role of conspiracy mentality in predicting support for social change among the political left and right
(2023) Winter, Kevin; Pummerer, Lotte; Sassenberg, Kai
Right-wing movements across the globe call for system-changing actions. This development contradicts the typically assumed resistance to change among the political right. Many of these movements use conspiracist rhetoric and, thus, we reasoned that conspiracy mentality might be associated with the striving for system change—especially on the political right. In four cross-sectional studies in Germany (one nationally quota-balanced, one preregistered; total N = 1539) we found that high conspiracy mentality was related to support for social change among the right and to support for reactionary social change among the left. Support for change among those high in conspiracy mentality was diminished when elected representatives (vs the population) were thought to drive social change. These results suggest that both right wingers and left wingers high in conspiracy mentality support change in ways that are seemingly incompatible with their political orientation.
Intraindividual conflicts reduce the polarization of attitudes
(2024) Sassenberg, Kai; Winter, Kevin
Societies are increasingly divided about political issues such as migration or counteracting climate change. This attitudinal polarization is the basis for intergroup conflict and prevents societal progress in addressing pressing challenges. Research on attitude change should provide an answer regarding how people might be persuaded to move away from the extremes to take a moderate stance. However, persuasive communication often most strongly affects those who hold a moderate attitude or are undecided. More importantly, barely any research has explicitly aimed at mitigating extreme attitudes and behavioral tendencies. Addressing this gap, this article summarizes research demonstrating that (different types of) intraindividual conflicts might be a means to mitigate polarized attitudes. Goal conflicts, cognitive conflicts, counterfactual thinking, and paradoxical thinking facilitate cognitive flexibility. This, in turn, seems to initiate the consideration of alternative stances and mitigate the polarization of attitudes. We discuss the limitations of the existing research and the potential of this approach for interventions.
The problem of embedding: Towards a concept of embedding in the context of the triadic work relationship between freelancers, hiring firms, and agencies in German medicine and IT
(2025) Ehlen, Ronny; Ruiner, Caroline
In social sciences as well as in politics, there has been growing interest in the phenomenon of triadic work relationships between solo self-employed, hiring firms, and agencies in recent years. Most debates focus on rather low qualified work contexts, usually characterized by an oversupply of work. Instead, knowledge-intensive industries nowadays tendentially face a lack of qualified work supply. Thereby, these industries provide initial conditions that tend to favor freelancers. This holds in particular for German medicine and IT, where freelancers are offered better earning opportunities and working conditions than they would have as permanent employees in the same job. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid so far to triadic work relationships under those initial conditions. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the relationship between highly qualified solo self-employed (i.e. freelancers), hiring firms, and agencies in the knowledge-intensive industries of German medicine and IT. Moreover, existing research on triadic work relationships requires analytical instruments to understand and conceptualize the practices of solo self-employed, hiring firms, and agencies in and with regard to their triadic work relationship. In critical engagement with the embeddedness approach, the dissertation elaborates on this issue. While usually applied in a way that (post )rationalizes an actor’s practices as consequential regarding her or his social relations, here the active side of embeddedness is especially emphasized. It is argued that even though an actor is embedded somehow, she or he is nonetheless capable of reflecting on their embeddedness, developing sophisticated strategies, and intentionally exercising practices aiming at shaping their embeddedness in a – from the actor’s perspective – purposeful way. Thus, understanding an actor’s practices as an active dealing with her or his embeddedness according to the actor’s interests leads away from the rather theoretical problem of embeddedness, i.e. the question of how actors are embedded in social relations. Instead, it leads to the practical issue of how actors actually become embedded in a purposeful way. This issue is defined as the problem of embedding. Based on the consideration, that the problem of embedding in particular holds for contingent work relationships, this dissertation applies the basic conceptual framework to the empirical background of triadic work relationships between freelancers, hiring firms, and agencies in German medicine and IT. Against this background, the dissertation asks how the aforementioned triadic work relationship actors are related to the problem of embedding, how they deal with it, and what regularities and structures can be identified. It answers these questions by regarding to the findings of four papers that empirically address the triadic relationship between solo self-employed, hiring firms, and agencies in German medicine and IT. As a result, it develops the idea of embedding as a practice that strategically and intentionally aims at shaping an actor’s own embeddedness or the embeddedness of others, as far as it is intended to serve the actor’s own interests. Moreover, it shows that an actors’ embeddedness and embedding is related to a structural, political, and/or a cultural-cognitive dimension on a micro-, meso-, and/or macro-level. These dimensions and levels are interrelated and can be combined or played out against each other by the actors. Beyond that it is worked out that an actor’s derivation of embedding practices from her or his embeddedness is a (socio-)cognitive process that is related to perception and reflection. In contrast, shaping the actor’s embeddedness by embedding is a practical process that is related to legitimacy and context. Based on these findings a conceptual model of embedding is developed. In sum, the dissertation provides three major contributions: a) By working out the problem and the concept of embedding, it provides a novel perspective on (triadic) work relationships based on the embeddedness concept of Granovetter. b) By investigating the triadic relationship of freelancers, hiring firms, and agencies in medicine and IT, this dissertation extends our knowledge of triadic work relationships in knowledge-intensive fields. Thereby, it also examines the generalizability of existing findings on triadic work relationships in contexts characterized by rather low qualified work. c) By transferring the embeddedness approach to (triadic) work relationships, this dissertation examples the potential of relating the sociological subdisciplines of the sociology of work and the new economic sociology to each other.
Professionelle unterrichtsbezogene Kommunikation zwischen berufsschulischen Lehrkräften
(2022) Schadt, Christian; Warwas, Julia
Despite their relevance for the facilitation of professionalization processes in teacher education as well as for the successful implementation of curricular reforms into the classroom, relevant micro processes of teacher collaboration seem to be little (systematically) investigated so far. This applies especially for the vocational school sector, where teacher collaboration is seen as necessary to cope with the tasks of teaching development that takes collective responsibility. One of the most relevant process variables of successful vs. less successful collaboration among teachers is communication about teaching. However, it has not yet been clarified which characteristics constitute an effective (=professional) communication about teaching for a successful mastering of cooperation processes. The present study addressed this desideratum and examined professional communication about teaching (pct) among (prospective) teachers at vocational schools in two consecutive research studies. A first step in this process was a systematic literature review carried out according to the PRISMA Statement focusing on international research literature to uncover generic characteristics of pct. The systematic literature review was guided by the following questions: a) Which definitions and theoretical underpinnings concerning pct can be identified in studies? b) Which observational measures characterize a pct? c) Is pct among teachers related to job-related growth (and to which facets of job-related growth in detail) A category-based content analysis of k=88 studies identified as relevant throughout the review process showed that pct is very heterogeneously defined and theoretically embedded. In addition, the observable measures of pct could be classified according to two different dimensions. Pct is characterized by the occurrence of characteristics on a level concerning the regulation of the process of communicating (quantitative aspects of communicating, structuring of communicating and atmosphere of communicating) as well as on a level concerning the content of communicating (focus on content and quality of communicating). Pct that follows the characteristics of both of these levels can bring about a large variety of gains in professionalization in the subject-specific, didactical, and pedagogical knowledge and skills of teachers and, above all, promote the successful mastering of collaboration processes. The findings on the observable measures of pct were then applied to develop a category system for the analysis of teaching-related communication between teachers. Subsequently, the second study was designed to determine the extent to which teaching-related communication between (prospective) teachers of vocational schools, that follows the previously identified measures, can actually promote the process of collaborative task accomplishment. For this purpose, a total of N=14 dyads (N=7 dyads of prospective teachers and N=7 dyads of experienced teachers each) were assigned to a simulated teaching situation in which they had to make a joint decision within the framework of lesson planning through communicative exchange. Specifically, a suitable learning task had to be selected from a set of learning tasks presented by means of a vignette for a teachingrelated lesson planning scenario through discussion. The communicative exchanges between the dyads of (prospective) vocational teachers have been recorded, transcribed and evaluated by means of a content analysis using the category system. For this purpose, the category system was first pre-tested, a coding manual was developed, and the simulated teaching situation was evaluated by means of a questionnaire. The research questions of this second sub-study were as follows: d) To what extent do the exchanges between the dyads reflect the characteristics of pct identified by the review? e) To what extent do the participants assess the research design as representative of and realistic for their profession? f) How can we recognize qualitative pct and how can we distinguish between qualitatively different exchanges based on the specific categories? g) In light of the categories of pct derived, to what extent do qualitatively distinguishable exchanges have an effect on the collaboration process/process of collaborative decision-making by dyads? It turned out that the initial category system for pct had to be revised in (a few) parts only and that a suitable coding manual could be developed for analyzing the exchanges of the dyads about learning tasks. The simulated teaching situation was assessed by the participants as being broadly authentic for the area of vocational teaching. In addition, it could be shown that the tools for analyzing pct are suitable for distinguishing exchanges of different qualities among tandems. Finally, it could be demonstrated that a qualitatively distinguishable exchange according to the criteria of analyzing pct can also influence the process of joint task accomplishment of the teacher dyads with varying degrees of success. The findings on this research topic, which has been hitherto largely marginalized within the discipline of vocational teaching, were used to eventually draw up implications for further research and the training of vocational school teachers.

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