Assessment of Fundamental Motives

Doctoral thesis (2019)

Motivation, that is, the orientation of the momentary execution of life towards a positively evaluated target state (Rheinberg & Vollmeyer, 2012), is one of the most important psychological constructs ... [more ▼]

Motivation, that is, the orientation of the momentary execution of life towards a positively evaluated target state (Rheinberg & Vollmeyer, 2012), is one of the most important psychological constructs related to success in various life domains such as school, work or family life (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2013). To be able to provide guidance to people and to support them in achieving success in these life domains, it is essential to identify those motivational aspects that are relevant for the respective life domain and to make them assessable. Here, motivational aspects that are inherent in a person, such as motives or goals, are promising candidates. Both constructs can be defined as explicit cognitive representations of desirable end states (Brandstätter, Schüler, Puca, & Lozo, 2013; Karoly, 1999). However, motives and goals are distinguished at the level of abstraction, that is, goals are a concrete representation of more abstract motives (Elliot & Church, 1997). In order to broaden our understanding in the assessment of motives and goals that are of relevance for education and work as two of the most important life domains, three studies were conducted in the context of the presented dissertation. In Paper 1, we revised the theory of Fundamental Motives (Havercamp, 1998; Reiss & Havercamp, 1998) and developed a time- and cost-efficient questionnaire to assess them in research settings. Fundamental Motives are a self-contained framework of 16 motives considered to be relevant for people in their everyday lives. The framework is appealing as it provides an approach to narrow down the plethora of motives to those relevant in a variety of life domains. In addition, the framework is already used extensively in coaching for work and other areas of life (Reyss & Birkhahn, 2009). First, an initial item pool was successively refined into 16 scales with three items each (named 16 motives research scales; 16mrs) across two samples with a total sample size of N = 569 representative for the German population with respect to age, sex and education. Second, we used another representative sample (N = 999) to validate the questionnaire and explore its nomological network. Results support the reliability and validity of the 16mrs for the assessment of Fundamental Motives. Investigations of the nomological network indicate, that Fundamental Motives represent aspects of personality that are different from the Big Five personality traits (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992) and cover motivational aspects beyond the well-established Power, Achievement, Affiliation, Intimacy, and Fear motives (Heckhausen & Heckhausen, 2010). Paper 2 was based on the results of Study 1, since we applied the framework of Fundamental Motives, as measured by the 16mrs constructed in Study 1, to the life domain of work. In coaching in work contexts, Fundamental Motives have been used extensively, not least because of their fine-grained level of abstraction that allows for a straightforward interpretation by the client. By investigating how the satisfaction of fine-grained motives supplied by characteristics of the workplace (i.e., need-supply fit) contribute to job satisfaction, we further validated the framework itself. At the same time were able to gain more detailed insights into how need-supply fit impacts job satisfaction, compared to broader motive or value clusters. To this end, we used the representative sample from Study 1 (N = 999) and selected all working people (n = 723). We applied polynomial regression in combination with response surface analysis (e.g., Edwards & Parry, 1993), which allows to simultaneously investigate how different levels of Fundamental Motives on the one hand and different levels of supply to satisfy these motives at the workplace on the other contribute to job satisfaction. We found that job satisfaction was highest when the level of supply by the workplace exceeded the level of the motive for Social Acceptance, Status, Autonomy, Sex, and Retention motives. When a high level of the motive and a high level of supply met, job satisfaction was highest for Curiosity, Idealism, and Social Participation motives. When the supplies fell short compared to the level of the motive, job satisfaction was negatively affected by the need-supply fit of Social Acceptance, Status, Sex, Retention, Curiosity, and Idealism motives. The results can be used in coaching and career development to uncover potential causes of low job satisfaction and provide guidance to clients on how to enhance their job satisfaction. In Paper 3, we shifted the focus to education as another major life domain. Here, achievement motivation has been identified as one of the major driving forces for progression and success (Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015). On a more concrete level compared to achievement motivation, Achievement Goals have been established as students’ cognitive representations of desired and undesired end states in educational achievement contexts (Elliot & Thrash, 2002; Hulleman, Schrager, Bodmann, & Harackiewicz, 2010). These goals typically focus on mastery, that is learning as much as possible, and performance, that is outperforming others or avoiding being outperformed. So far, Achievement Goals have been mostly conceptualized as domain-specific (Bong, 2001). Although this assumption is supported by previous studies, research on the processes operating behind the domain- specificity is scarce. The dimensional comparisons theory (Möller & Marsh, 2013) has introduced dimensional comparisons as a potential process operating behind the domain- specificity. Dimensional comparisons describe intrapersonal comparisons of characteristics in a domain with characteristics in another domain for the sake of self-evaluation. Previous investigations indicated that dimensional comparison processes are involved in the formation of the domain-specificity of important educational constructs, such as Self-Concept or Test Anxiety. Consequently, our aim in study 3 was to investigate, if dimensional comparison processes operate in the formation of the domain-specificity of Achievement Goals. To this end, we used a sample of N = 381 German ninth and tenth grade students in six German highest-track schools. Results indicate that dimensional comparison processes impact the domain specificity of Achievement Goals. Thus, the results extend our understanding of the domain specificity of Achievement Goals and simultaneously add to the validity of the dimensional comparison theory. In conclusion, the presented scientific work adds to the assessment of motives and goals that are crucially important in various life domains, but especially in work and educational settings. The contributions of this dissertation to the existing literature include (1) the revision of a comprehensive motivational framework (Paper 1), (2) the development and validation of a questionnaire based on this revised framework (Papers 1 & 2), (3) important assessment related insights concerning Achievement Goals in educational settings (Paper 3), and (4) practical implications for coaching and interventions in work and educational settings as two of the most important life domains (Papers 2 & 3). [less ▲]

Rezente geodätische Akvtitäten im Südatlantik: GNSS und Pegelinstallationen auf Südgeorgien und Tristan da Cunha

Presentation (2019, December 05)

Provides details of the recent scientific activities in South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha giving some of the latest results. This is a combination of the results presented at IUGG2019 and ISAES2019.

Size-dependent spatial magnetization profile of manganese – zinc ferrite Mn0.2Zn0.2Fe2.6O4 nanoparticles

Poster (2019, December 05)

Essays in Financial Stability

Doctoral thesis (2019)

DAISY: A Data Information System for accountability under the General Data Protection Regulation

in GigaScience (2019), 8(12),

The new European legislation on data protection, namely, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has introduced comprehensive requirements for the documentation about the processing of personal ... [more ▼]

The new European legislation on data protection, namely, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has introduced comprehensive requirements for the documentation about the processing of personal data as well as informing the data subjects of its use. GDPR’s accountability principle requires institutions, projects, and data hubs to document their data processings and demonstrate compliance with the GDPR. In response to this requirement, we see the emergence of commercial data-mapping tools, and institutions creating GDPR data register with such tools. One shortcoming of this approach is the genericity of tools, and their process-based model not capturing the project-based, collaborative nature of data processing in biomedical research.We have developed a software tool to allow research institutions to comply with the GDPR accountability requirement and map the sometimes very complex data flows in biomedical research. By analysing the transparency and record-keeping obligations of each GDPR principle, we observe that our tool effectively meets the accountability requirement.The GDPR is bringing data protection to center stage in research data management, necessitating dedicated tools, personnel, and processes. Our tool, DAISY, is tailored specifically for biomedical research and can help institutions in tackling the documentation challenge brought about by the GDPR. DAISY is made available as a free and open source tool on Github. DAISY is actively being used at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine and the ELIXIR-Luxembourg data hub. [less ▲]

IN FOR A PENNY: A LEGAL AND DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF REPARATIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON EUROPEAN (DIS?) INTEGRATION

in International Journal of Legal History and Institutions (2019), 2019(3), 15-77

This article summarizes the legal, historical and political developments in regards to the issue of WWII reparations. It suggests that due to the separation between the historical and legal fields which ... [more ▼]

This article summarizes the legal, historical and political developments in regards to the issue of WWII reparations. It suggests that due to the separation between the historical and legal fields which have examined the issue of WWII reparations, no generally accepted notion about their status exists either in the historical, legal or political spheres. It is this lack of clarity that has greatly contributed to this issue remaining unresolved thus far. This paper’s originality lies in its combination of diverse and original sources, both primary and secondary, in addition to referring to the text of the treaties in question to bring the debate on WWII reparations into a single narrative and addressing some of the shortcomings in other studies. It is also original because no previous studies on WWII reparations have addressed the role their ‘settlement’ played in the early European Integration process. In conclusion, the paper responds to arguments stating that the issue is closed, and questions whether or not the US and USSR did in fact have the right to suspend the rights of their allies to claim reparations from Germany upon re-unification. [less ▲]

Scalable Uncertainty Management - 13th International Conference (SUM 2019), Compiegne, France, December 16-18, 2019, Proceedings

Book published by Springer (2019)

Energy Efficient Bit Allocation and Hybrid Combining for Millimeter Wave MIMO Systems

in GLOBECOM (2019)

Linear system identification from ensemble snapshot observations

in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (2019, December)

Developments in transcriptomics techniques have caused a large demand in tailored computational methods for modelling gene expression dynamics from experimental data. Recently, so-called single-cell ... [more ▼]

Developments in transcriptomics techniques have caused a large demand in tailored computational methods for modelling gene expression dynamics from experimental data. Recently, so-called single-cell experiments have revolutionised genetic studies. These experiments yield gene expression data in single cell resolution for a large number of cells at a time. However, the cells are destroyed in the measurement process, and so the data consist of snapshots of an ensemble evolving over time, instead of time series. The problem studied in this article is how such data can be used in modelling gene regulatory dynamics. Two different paradigms are studied for linear system identification. The first is based on tracking the evolution of the distribution of cells over time. The second is based on the so-called pseudotime concept, identifying a common trajectory through the state space, along which cells propagate with different rates. Therefore, at any given time, the population contains cells in different stages of the trajectory. Resulting methods are compared in numerical experiments. [less ▲]

Luxatlas.lu - Ein digitaler und interaktiver historischer Stadtatlas Luxemburgs

Book published by University of Luxembourg (2019)

Seit Ende 2016 widmet sich das universitäre Forschungsprojekt VILLUX X in Zusammenarbeit mit der Stadt Luxemburg der Erstellung eines digitalen historischen Atlas. Dieser zeigt die städtische Entwicklung ... [more ▼]

Seit Ende 2016 widmet sich das universitäre Forschungsprojekt VILLUX X in Zusammenarbeit mit der Stadt Luxemburg der Erstellung eines digitalen historischen Atlas. Dieser zeigt die städtische Entwicklung Luxemburgs seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts in Form von digitalen und interaktiven Karten. In mehreren Zeitschnitten ab den 1820er Jahren lassen sich die tiefgreifenden Wandlungsprozesse der Stadt und ihr Wachstum interaktiv nachvollziehen: Von der engen Festungsstadt des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur großflächigen, internationalen Metropole des 21. Jahrhunderts. Die Stadtentwicklung ist für diesen Zeitraum in vielen Bereichen noch immer wenig erforscht. Das überrascht, denn Luxemburg hat im Vergleich zu anderen europäischen Städten in den letzten 200 Jahren besonders tiefgreifende Veränderungsprozesse durchlaufen: Von einer mittelgroßen Festungsstadt der frühen Neuzeit, die sich erst nach 1867 von ihrem einengenden Militärkorsett befreien konnte, bis hin zu einer modernen europäischen Hauptstadt des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Dann, in der Nachkriegszeit, wurde die Stadt zu einem der drei Hauptverwaltungssitze der Europäischen Union. Und ab den 1970er Jahren entwickelte sie sich darüber hinaus zu einem internationalen Finanzzentrum. Heute ist Luxemburg zweifellos die wirtschaftlich, politisch und kulturell bedeutendste Stadt der Großregion mit einem ausgeprägten kosmopolitischen Flair. Ziel des Luxatlas-Projekts ist es, die Voraussetzungen und Merkmale dieser Entwicklung sowie die wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Rahmenbedingungen nachzuzeichnen und zu analysieren. Es sind vor allem raumbezogene Fragstellungen, die dabei in historischer Perspektive mit dem digitalen und interaktiven Stadtatlas in den Blick genommen werden. Der Atlas lässt sich in diesem Sinne definieren als eine Sammlung von Karten, Bildern und erläuternden Texten. Er bündelt und verknüpft relevante Daten von städtischen und nationalen Behörden und Kultureinrichtungen sowie auch von unterschiedlichen Forschungsdisziplinen wie Geschichte und Geographie und stellt diese in überarbeiteter Form den Nutzern zur Verfügung. Luxatlas.lu ermöglicht es, historische Veränderungsprozesse des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts diachron zu dokumentieren und gleichzeitig traditionelle Entwicklungsvorstellungen in Frage stellen. Zugleich etabliert er neue Methoden und Konzepte zur Standardisierung von Online-Karten und wird somit selbst zu einem Instrument zusätzlichen Erkenntnisgewinns für seine Nutzer. [less ▲]