Putting Scientific Findings to Use
As an empirical science, psychology has always addressed questions related to working life, such as:
- What motivates people at work?
- What psychological factors influence human performance and productivity?
- How does leadership work?
- How can collaboration and organizational processes be optimally organized?
Especially in recent decades, empirically grounded knowledge about the psychological aspects of work has grown at an enormous pace. By contrast, the application of these findings in practice has developed at a much slower pace, which can be explained in no small part by the fact that research results are usually prepared and published solely for the academic community. What is still largely lacking, however, is a synthesis and “translation” for practical application that addresses specific questions and problems as they arise, contextualizes and evaluates research findings in light of these issues, and derives clear, actionable recommendations from them. The EBM topic portal aims to provide practice-oriented texts that make psychological insights practically usable and illustrate how they can be applied.
Teaching and Learning Practical Application
In conjunction with the seminar “Advanced Topics in Work and Organizational Psychology: Evidence-Based Economic Psychology,” offered annually as part of the Master’s program "Economic, Organizational, and Social Psychology", students have been writing scientifically grounded papers on practical issues in Economic and Organizational Psychology since the summer semester of 2014. For selected papers from the seminar, the respective authors are offered the opportunity to have their papers published on this portal following an additional revision process supervised by research assistants from the EBM team at the chair. In this way, students are given the opportunity to practice applying their specialized knowledge in real-world contexts and, in particular, to develop the important skill of applying this knowledge in a clear and understandable manner to relevant issues arising from the practical realities of working life.