West German Sample Research Articles

Sex- and Regionalspecific Differences in Child Abuse and Violence Before the German Reunification. Results from GESA, a Multi-Cohort Study

Results from a population-based study suggest sex-specific patterns of self-reported child maltreatment, more frequently reported in former West than East Germany. Aim of the current study was to examine these patterns in two regional samples of the former East- (SHIP, 2008 - 2012) and West German (KORA, 2013 - 2014) population. Child maltreatment was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Screener (CTS). Overall, child maltreatment was less often reported in the East German sample, compared to the West German sample. The most prominent differences were identified in self-rated emotional violence (east 6.1%, west 8.7%), physical violence (east 5.7%, west 10.3%) and physical neglect (east 10.0%, west 19.2%). However, we could not find differences in sex-specific patterns between the East and West German samples. Results were discussed within a historical context, since the events took place before the German reunification in two oppose political systems.

Later-life depressive symptoms and anxiety attacks in displaced and nondisplaced populations

• Forced displacement is associated with higher rates of anxiety in later life. • Depending on the socio-political context, forced displacement is associated with increased depressive symptomatology. • The socio-political context is a potential predisposing factor for later-life anxiety or depression after forced displacement. Forced displacement has been suggested as a potential cause for depression and anxiety in later life. Little research has been done on the influence of the host country's socio-political system. Here we examine whether the later-life effects of displacement on mental health (i.e. depressive symptoms and anxiety attacks) differ between socio-political contexts. We hypothesized that between-group differences (displaced vs. nondisplaced) in self-rated depression scores and frequencies of anxiety attacks are more pronounced in East versus West German populations. Datasets from three representative nationwide surveys (2002, 2003, 2007) were analyzed; study participants born 1946 and earlier were included. The final sample comprised 2239 participants, including 1235 women. The depression and anxiety modules of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-D) were used to assess current anxiety and depression. Of the total sample, 15.4% reported WW2 displacement, 18.9% ( n = 129) in the East and 13.9% ( n = 216) in the West German sample. Concerning depression, we found significant between-group differences (displaced vs. nondisplaced) in the East (but not West) German sample. Concerning anxiety, both displaced East and West Germans reported a significantly higher frequency of anxiety attacks, as compared to nondisplaced individuals. Differences between effect sizes (East vs. West) were significant for depression, and anxiety after controlling for age and sex. Limitations include the self-rated assessment, not controlling for the confounding impact of the German reunification, and the cross-sectional study design. Results corroborate the assumption of an unsupportive socio-political context as a potential predisposing factor for later-life anxiety or depression after forced displacement.

Internal migration over young adult life courses: Continuities and changes across cohorts in West Germany

Abstract This study examines internal migration as part of unfolding life courses, scrutinizing stability and change across socio-historical contexts from post-war Germany. We inquire whether the structure of family and labour market life courses intersect with migration experience in early adult ages for men and women born around 1939–41, 1949–51, 1964 and 1971. We then establish how recent changes in the transition to adulthood are reflected in the life courses of internal migrants. We accomplish this using exploratory mining of event histories on retrospective monthly records of life events occurring between ages 16 and 30 from the West German samples of the German Life History Study. Our descriptive analyses reveal that the structure of young adults’ life courses intersects with internal migration experience. Differences in the life courses of movers and stayers have increased across socio-historical periods, and are more apparent in the labour market trajectory than in the family trajectory. Diversity in internal migrants’ trajectories reflect the complex ways in which young adults negotiate life courses, and align with the generalized protraction of school-to-work transitions and the delay of family projects. Our research adds to recent studies that underline the value of situating migration events in the wider biographical and structural contexts. Findings contribute to map in efficient ways the full complexity of individual life courses.

The ins and outs of German unemployment: a transatlantic perspective

This article decomposes fluctuations in the German unemployment rate into changes in inflows (job separation) and outflows (job finding). For this purpose, we construct and examine monthly labour market transition rates from the West German sample of the SOEP (and the CPS) for the period 1984–2009. We explicitly take account of the low level of labour market transition rates in Germany. Our article shows that in West Germany, changes in the inflow rate are more important (about 60%) than changes in the outflow rate, whereas in the USA close to 80% are due to changes in the outflow rate.

So Far So Good: Age, Happiness, and Relative Income

In a simple 2-period model of relative income under uncertainty, higher comparison income for the younger cohort can signal higher or lower expected lifetime relative income, and hence either increase or decrease well-being. With data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey, we first confirm the standard negative effects of comparison income on life satisfaction with all age groups, and many controls. However when we split the West German sample by age we find a positive significant effect of comparison income in the under 45s, and the usual negative effect only in the over 45 group. With the same split in UK and East German data, comparison income loses significance, which is consistent with the model prediction for the younger group. Our results provide first evidence that the standard aggregation with only a quadratic control for age can obscure major differences in the effects of relative income.

Prevalence of overweight and obesity in East and West German children in the decade after reunification: population-based series of cross-sectional studies

Objective:To analyse time trends in overweight and obesity from 1991 to 2000 in samples of German children and to test the hypothesis of a trend difference between the samples from...

East—West Differences in Employment Relations, Organizational Justice and Trust: Possible Reasons and Consequences

In a cross-sectional questionnaire study with 245 employees from West Germany and 357 employees from East Germany, the inferior labour market and economic situation in East Germany could be shown to be related, as expected, to the psychological contract, with a poorer delivery of the deal and lower levels of justice and trust. Affective commitment, on the other hand, was shown to be higher in the East than in the West German sample. Moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that the cognitive perception of psychological contract breaches is less related to emotional strain and distributive justice in the East German than in the West German sample. Results are discussed within the framework of economic and normative differences, and also with reference to social exchange theories.

Determinants and Consequences of Survey Respondents' Social Desirability Beliefs about Racial Attitudes

Abstract. In this article, we first analyze the respondents' beliefs about the social desirability of ten racial attitude items from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS). We found these beliefs, which serve as the basis for the incentives for social desirability (SD) bias, to differ according to the respondents' sex, age, and education, as well as for the analyzed attitude items. Second, we found that these incentive differences, observed in our urban West-German sample, predicted the attitude answers of respondents from the nationwide ALLBUS survey in 1996. This effect was, furthermore, stronger for respondents with congruent characteristics. Our results suggest (1) that the ALLBUS data about the analyzed topic are susceptible to SD bias, (2) that particular items are more strongly affected in this respect, and (3) that differences in the racial attitude reports between certain groups of respondents may only be the result of differently strong SD bias.

Toward a Multifaceted Model of the Structure of Social Justice Judgments

This study explores the potential cross-cultural generalizability of a conceptual framework for understanding the multifaceted universe of contents and structure of human social justice judgments (SJJ). The hypothesized framework identifies four elemental facets needed to define SJJ and specifies the types of justice contents people are likely to distinguish when evaluating the justness of a distribution—principles and distributive rules, social resources, sign of the outcome distribution (positive or negative), and the type of social context in which resources are distributed. To empirically verify the fit between the hypothesized structure, smallest space analysis was applied, and earlier findings obtained in an Israeli sample were compared to findings obtained in East and West German samples. Separate replications conducted in the East and West German samples revealed that the multidimensional configurations of SJJ intercorrelations could be partitioned into distinct regions of items that correspond to the facets’ hypothesized elements and their expected arrangements

Returns to Education and Experience in Self-Employment: Evidence from Germany

This paper compares the returns to human capital in the self-employed and wage-employed sectors of the economy. Using data from the former West German sample of the German Socioeconomic Panel survey for the 1984 – 1997 time period, we estimate returns to education and work experience from standard log-earnings equations for selfemployed and wage-employed workers. Two key results are found. First, additional schooling has a smaller effect on earnings for the self-employed than for the wage-employed. Indeed, educational attainment has an insignificant effect on self-employment earnings. Second, prior self-employment experience receives a lower return in wageemployment than does prior wage-employment experience. These results are consistent across specifications controlling for education endogeneity and self-selection bias.

Human Y-chromosomal STR types in north Thailand.

A north Thai Y-haplotype database consisting of the loci DYS19, DXYS156-Y, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, and the four subsegments of DYS389 is presented. We observed 44 Y-types in 50 unrelated Thais, and the haplotype diversity was calculated to be 97.36%. No Y-types were shared with a sample of 55 Japanese, but 3 matches were found in a sample of 61 Han Chinese, and there was one Thai-German match in a larger west German sample (n = 179).

Intergenerational context discontinuity affects the onset of puberty : A comparison of parent-child dyads in West and East Germany.

The assumption that the onset of puberty is a context-sensitive marker of a reproductive strategy is tested by comparing parental and filial childhood context and somatic development in West and East Germany. Sixty-eight mother-daughter dyads and 35 father-son dyads were taken from two samples of families from Osnabrück in West Germany and Halle in East Germany. According to the observed context discontinuity between the generations in the male dyads, linear regression models show that no indicator of male sexual maturation was influenced significantly by the somatic development of the father. Instead of an inherited timing of maturation, antecedent distal factors like socioeconomic childhood context variables and critical life events lead to an acceleration of male sexual maturation. Finally we test the effect of two different conditions of childhood context continuity on daughter's age at menarche with maternal age at menarche controlled. Linear regression models show that mother's age at menarche predicts daughter's age at menarche only under the condition of contextual continuity between generations, which was the case in the West German sample only. In East Germany, where mother's age at menarche had no significant effect, the amount of variance explained by childhood context variables was almost the same. These results indicate the context sensitivity of somatic development which seems to follow an evolutionary rationale.

Value Priorities and Religiosity in Four Western Religions

Theological, sociological, and psychological analyses of religion suggest that religiosity associates positively with values that enhance transcendence, preserve the social order, and protect individuals against uncertainty, and negatively with values that emphasize self-indulgence and favor intellectual or emotional openness to change. On this basis, an integrated set of hypotheses was generated to relate religiosity to the importance that individuals attribute to 10 basic types of human values across religious groups. Hypotheses were largely confirmed in educated adult samples of Israeli Jews (n = 635), Spanish Roman Catholics (n = 478), Dutch Calvinist Protestants (n = 217), and Greek Orthodox (n = 400). Hypotheses also were largely confirmed in a representative West German sample (n = 1,807) with different measures of religiosity and values. The pattern of correlations was robust across subsamples divided by age, gender, education, and income, and for Lutheran Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Stature and stature distribution in recent West German and historic samples of Italian and Dutch conscripts.

Based on the standard for the natural distribution of stature obtained from 11,851,168 West German conscripts (born in 1938-1971), stature and stature distribution were investigated in historic samples of Italian (born 1854-1963) and Dutch (drafts of 1863-1970) conscripts. Both stature and stature distribution in the historic Italian and Dutch samples showed a variety of characteristic deviations from the natural stature distribution of the modern populations, which strongly suggest that there are at least two developmental periods that are sensitive to socioeconomic events with regard to final stature. Environmental disasters during pregnancy and the first year of life lead to a ubiquitous reduction of mean stature in the total cohort affected. This is obvious in Italians born in 1945, who are 3.7 mm shorter than those born in 1944, and 7.9 mm shorter than those born in 1946. An even stronger suppression of final stature by more than 12 mm is obvious in Italians born in 1899 and 1900. Stature distribution, however, is influenced by environmental factors during adolescence. Particularly small persons become numerous during periods of war and economic depression. This is evident in the 19th century Dutch and Italian samples, and during the early 1920s. Changes in developmental tempo seem unlikely to cause these effects. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Migration and marriage in the life course: a method for studying synchronized events

"On the basis of a West German sample of residence histories that is representative of three birth cohorts, of which the one born in 1939-41 is analysed, log-linear techniques were applied to separate the effects of being married, and of getting married, on migration rates. Results show that the dependence of short and long distance moves on age substantially [diminishes] if marriage is considered as a synchronization variable. Moreover, the common finding that married persons move less than the unmarried is reversed at short distances if marriage is taken into account as an event which influences the probability of another (event dependence)." (SUMMARY IN FRE)

Intracompany Job Transfers

Abstract This study explored the interaction effects of stressful intraorganizational transfer and collaborative interpersonal support (CIS) on work-related outcomes in an R&D environment. Questionnaire data were gathered from 161 British/American and 266 West German scientific and engineering professionals employed in R&D units of large industrial companies. In the British/American sample, moderated regression analyses revealed significantly stronger effects of CIS on job involvement, intention to leave, and career satisfaction for transferees than for a comparison group. The buffering effects of CIS were stronger for lateral than for promoted transferees. Because similar results were not found in the West German sample, the results suggest that British/American R&D professionals benefit more from CIS in times of career stress. Findings are discussed in terms of future cross-cultural stress research needs and preventive interventions for engendering CIS among technical professionals.

An exploratory‐descriptive study of a sadomasochistically oriented sample

Demographics, sexual behavior, and self‐perceptions of a self‐defined sadomasochistic (S/M) sample of 178 men are described. These men either returned a questionnaire published in an S/M magazine or completed a questionnaire after being solicited at an S/M support‐group meeting. The composite respondent was heterosexual, well‐educated, relatively affluent, interested in both dominant and submissive roles (switchable), and engaged in a wide range of sexual activities, both S/M and non‐S/M. Most of the respondents first acknowledged interest and engaged in S/M acts as a young adult, after other sexual orientation issues were settled. Although most respondents were satisfied with the S/M aspect of their sexuality, a small percentage (approximately 6%) expressed distress concerning their behavior, and 16% had sought help from a therapist regarding their S/M desires. These data are generally similar to those obtained from a similar investigation of a West German sample (Spengler, 1975, 1977). The data from a s...

The Strelau temperament inventory (STI): Preliminary results in a West German sample

The Strelau Temperament Inventory (STI) was administered to a West German sample consisting of 108 men and 73 women. Distributions for the three scales [Strenght of Excitation (SE), Strenght of Inhibition (SI) and Mobility of Nervous Processes (M)] did not deviate from a normal distribution; men scored higher on the SE scale than women. Split-half reliabilities and coefficients of internal consistency were sufficiently high for SE (0.89 and 0.84) and SI (0.83 and 0.82), but not for M (0.76 and 0.68). E was found to be positively related to SE and M, N turned out to be negatively related to SE and SI. The P and L scales were highly correlated with SI. The results indicate that the SE and SI scales can be recommended in their present form for use in West Germany, whereas the M scale needs revision. The interrelations between STI and EPQ scales are in line with Eysenck's theoretical considerations.