Intergroup Research at the University of Jena

Between 1997 and the end of the first decade of the 21 century, the Department of Social Psychology at the University of Jena was one of the centers of Intergroup Research in Europe – if not world-wide. It all started when Amélie Mummendey moved together with a small group of postdocs and PhD students from the University of Münster to the University of Jena. Within a few years a DFG funded International Graduate College and Research Unit as well as several junior research groups were established and the group grew to more than 20 people. Summer schools, PhD consultation workshops, and most prominently the annually Jena Intergroup Meeting, drew the attention of researchers from all around the world to the group and its work. Numerous top international intergroup researchers visited Jena during those days. Some spend their sabbatical there, and many established long-lasting collaborative links with Amélie and her team.

Under the leadership of Amélie Mummendey the group was never limited to a specific theoretical or methodological approach, but to the topic of group processes and intergroup relations. The mixture of experimental research and longitudinal field research, social cognition and social identity researchers, cognitive and motivational approaches etc. generated a unique set of perspectives on one and the same domain.

Academic social psychologists who received their PhD from the University of Jena or worked as a postdoc in the context of the Department of Social Psychology include Mauro Bianci, Robert Böhm, Stephanie de Moulin, Juliane Degner, Hans-Peter Erb, Allard Feddes, Immo Fritsche, Steffen Giessner, Ilka Gleibs, Nina Hansen, Kai J. Jonas, Philipp Jugert, Thorsten Meiser, Birte Siem, Thomas Schubert, Susanne Täuber, Sven Waldzus, Matthew White, Frank Wieber, Karl-Andrew Woltin and many more.