R ist eine freie Statistiksoftware, die in der Psychologie zunehmend eingesetzt wird. In diesem ersten R-Lehrbuch für Psychologen werden die Verfahren erläutert, die für die psychologische Forschung zentral sind. Die Verfahren werden anhand konkreter Daten – die auch online zur Verfügung gestellt werden – dargestellt, sodass die Beispiele direkt am eigenen PC nachvollzogen werden können. Übersichtstabellen mit den wichtigsten Befehlen, Übungsaufgaben, das Glossar und Anwendertipps erleichtern den Einstieg in die Software (auch für den Umstieg von SPSS auf R). Aus dem Inhalt: • Installation von R • Grundlagen der Programmiersprache von R • Datenmanagement • Transformationen von Variablen • Univariate und bivariate deskriptive Statistiken • Grafiken • Inferenzstatistische Verfahren

Hat Deutschland zwanzig Jahre nach dem Fall der Mauer seine Trennung überwunden? Ist »zusammengewachsen, was zusammengehört«? In diesem Band versuchen Soziologinnen und Soziologen diese umstrittene Frage mithilfe empirischer Vergleiche der Entwicklung der Lebensbedingungen und -verläufe in Ost und West zu beantworten. Der Aufbau orientiert sich an den typischen Phasen des Lebensverlaufs: Kindheit, Jugend, Erwachsensein, Altern. Er beleuchtet Aspekte wie Schule und Bildung, Partnerschaft und Familie, Arbeitsmarkt und Erwerbsleben, Lebensstandard und Konsumstile, soziale Integration und politische Beteiligung. Grundlage der Bilanzierung bildet das SOEP, eine national und international vielfach ausgewertete Längsschnitterhebung, die seit 1984 (zunächst nur in Westdeutschland) jährlich bei denselben Personen und Haushalten durchgeführt wird und 1990 auch auf das Gebiet der ehemaligen DDR ausgedehnt wurde.

This entry describes and illustrates techniques of modeling discontinuous change with hierarchical linear models (also known as multilevel models). To this aim, six models of increasing complexity are presented in a stepwise fashion. The entry discusses discontinuous change models with phase-specific elevation shift, discontinuous change models with phase-specific elevation shift and time as continuous Level-1 predictor, discontinuous change models with phase-specific elevation shift and slopes, the introduction and centering of Level-2 predictors, and discontinuous nonlinear change models using higher order polynomials. The models are exemplified by means of real-world data extracted from the German Socioeconomic Panel. The motivating research question was to assess the impact of the event "Bdivorce" on the life satisfaction trajectories of men and women. The parameters of the various models are interpreted in detail, and the topic of model comparison is discussed.

Consistency and change in personality were analyzed by examining personality types across adulthood and old age using data from two nationally representative panel studies from Germany (N = 14,718; 16 - 82 years) and Australia (N = 8,315; 15 - 79 years). In both samples, the Big Five personality traits were measured twice across a period of 4 years. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition analyses revealed four main findings: First, solutions with 3 (in the German sample) or 4 (in the Australian sample) personality types were found to be most interpretable. Second, measurement invariance tests revealed that these personality types were consistent across all age groups but differed slightly between men and women. Third, age was related to the number of individuals classified within each personality type. Namely, there were more resilients and fewer undercontrollers in older compared with younger age groups. Fourth, there was strong consistency of personality type membership across a period of 4 years in both genders and most age cohorts. Comparatively less consistency across time was found for undercontrollers and individuals in old age. Taken together, these findings show that in the two nations studied here, personality types were highly consistent across gender, age, and time.

Previous research on unemployment and life satisfaction has focused on the effects of unemployment on individuals but neglected the effects on their partners. In the present study, we used dyadic multilevel models to analyze longitudinal data from 2,973 couples selected from a German representative panel study to examine the effects of unemployment on life satisfaction in couples over several years. We found that unemployment decreases life satisfaction in both members of the couple, but the effect is more pronounced for those who become unemployed (actors) than for the other couple members (partners). In both couple members, the reaction is attenuated if they share the same labor status after the job loss: Actors experienced a greater drop in life satisfaction if their partners were employed than if they were unemployed at the time of the job loss, and partners reacted negatively to the job loss only if they were employed or inactive in the workforce, but not if they were unemployed themselves. With respect to couple-level moderator variables, we found that both actors and partners reacted more negatively to unemployment if they had children. The reaction was also more negative in male actors than in female actors, but there was no difference between male and female partners. In sum, these findings indicate that changes in life satisfaction can be caused by major life events experienced by significant others.