Friedrich Foersterling

Friedrich Försterling (born January 25, 1953 in Braunschweig ; † August 6, 2007 in Munich ) was a German psychologist who became internationally known for his research on attribution theory . Most recently he was Professor of General Psychology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .

Life

After attending the Martino-Katharineum , he studied psychology from 1973, first at the University of Graz , then at the University of Salzburg . There he completed his doctorate with Erwin Roth in 1977 (subject: causal attribution of success and failure, gender, risk-taking behavior and some aspects of group work: an empirical study).

After postdoctoral studies with Bernard Weiner at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1977 , he was a fellow in 1978 at the Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy , New York , under the direction of Albert Ellis . From 1979 to 1988 he worked as a research assistant at the University of Bielefeld with Wulf-Uwe Meyer , and in 1988 he accepted a visiting professorship for social psychology at the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario. In 1991 he was appointed adjunct professor at Bielefeld University. After a professorship in Erfurt , he switched to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1996.

Försterling died on August 6, 2007 at the age of 54.

Research priorities

Försterling's work can be assigned to the area of ​​attribution-theoretical research in the area of ​​overlap between general psychology , social psychology and clinical psychology . His basic theoretical contributions expanded, among other things, the scientific knowledge of the covariation principle according to Harold H. Kelley (1921–2003), verb causality and the functional value of realistic attributions . Due to his practical training in psychotherapy with Albert Ellis, with whom he was on friendly terms, Försterling repeatedly made a connection to clinical fields of application in his work. He made an early plea for the practical implementation of attribution-theoretical findings in psychotherapy .

Works (selection)

Essays

• Attributional retraining: A review. In: Psychological Bulletin. 98. 1985, pp. 495-512.
• Models of covariation and causal attribution. How do they relate to the analogy of analysis of variance ?. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 57, 1989, pp. 615-625.
• The psychological causality implicit in language: A review. In: Psychological Bulletin. Vol. 121. 1997, pp. 192-218 (together with Udo Rudolph ).
• Attributions of depressed persons. How consistent are they with the covariation principle ?. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 75. 1998, pp. 1047-1061 (together with Markus Bühner and Stefan Gall).
• Ability, luck, and looks: An evolutionary look at achievement ascriptions and the Sexual Attribution Bias. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 92. 2007, pp. 775–788 (together with Sandra Preikschas and Maria Agthe).
• Success attributions and more: Multidimensional extensions of the Sexual Attribution Bias to failure attributions, social emotions, and the desire for social interaction. In: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Vol. 34 (2008), pp. 1627-1638 (together with Maria Agthe and Matthias Spörrle).

Monographs

• Attribution Theory in Clinical Psychology. Psychologie Verlag Union, Urban and Schwarzenberg, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-621-27005-1 .
• Attribution: An introduction to theories, research, and applications. Psychology Press, Hove 2001, ISBN 0-86377-792-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Försterling in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death notification from LMU, actual. August 21, 2007 ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on paed.uni-muenchen.de