Otto von Guericke Universität (Germany) – OVGU

The Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg was founded in 1993 and is one of the youngest German universities. It was formed in a merger of the existing Technical University, the Teacher Training College and the Medical School. The University now comprises 9 faculties and almost 13,800 students. The Department of Psychology is located in two different faculties. The division of Ellen Matthies is located in the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, her group at the moment includes a senior researcher (Dr. Anke Blöbaum) and five PhD students. The Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg is the only university in Germany that offers a Master in Psychology with a focus on environmental psychology. Master students are involved in the research projects.

Dr. Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg – OvGU
Universitätsplatz 2, D-39106 Magdeburg, Germany
Mail: Ellen Matthies
Phone: +49 391 6718471
Website: www.ovgu.de

 

 

Ellen Matthies University of Otto-von-Guericke, Germany

She has been professor for environmental psychology at the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg since December 2011. Her main research field is man-environment-interactions with a focus on environmentally relevant behaviours (electricity use and car use) and decisions and theory driven development and evaluation of intervention measures to promote sustainable consumption. Ellen Matthies was from August 2009 until November 2011 Professor for Environmental Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. From 2001 to 2010 she was associate professor for Applied Psychology at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. She accomplished her habilitation in 2001 with the topic “Coping with environmental threats and global environmental change” at the Psychology department at Ruhr-University Bochum and also received her PhD there in 1993. Ellen Matthies has guided several research projects related to fields of applied social psychology and environmental psychology (mainly funded by the German Research Foundation DFG but also by the Norwegian Research Council, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), e.g. on the role of personal and social norms in resource consumption, the role of habitualization for behavioural change, and on the development and evaluation of interventions to promote changes in sustainability related behaviours. From 2003 to 2009 she was member of the board of the “Fachgruppe Umweltpsychologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie”. Since 2013 she has been member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU).

Anke Blöbaum University of Otto-von-Guericke, Germany

Anke Blöbaum is a psychologist, working as a senior researcher at the institute of psychology at the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg. From 2010 until 2012 she was guest lecturer at the institute of landscape- and open-space planning at the Leibniz University in Hanover. Since 2009 she has been director of the company kon-sys – Kommunikation, Nachhaltigkeit & Mensch-Umwelt-Systeme (communication, sustainability & interactions of people and their physical environment). After her studies of psychology, Anke Blöbaum worked at the Psychology department at Ruhr-University Bochum from 1993 until 2009 as a senior researcher and also received her PhD there in 2000. Anke Blöbaum is a ‘mediator ‘ according to the guidelines of the federal association of mediation, Germany. Anke Blöbaum has undertaken several research projects related to fields of applied social psychology and environmental psychology (e.g. on the role of norms in resource consumption, on the impact of infrastructure on mobility behaviour, cross-cultural comparison of environmental behaviour, recreation patterns in urban forests). Since 2009 she has been board member of the division of Environmental Psychology in the German Association of Psychology and she is the co-editor of the German Journal „Umweltpsychologie“ (environmental psychology).