Klaus Grossmann

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Klaus Erwin Grossmann (born April 13, 1935 in Leipzig ) is a German psychologist and behavioral biologist . From 1970 to 2003 he was a university lecturer , first in Bielefeld and from 1978 in Regensburg . As an attachment researcher, he and his wife Karin have made a significant contribution to the development of attachment theory.

Career

Born in Leipzig, Grossmann grew up there for the first four years and from 1939 in Bad Hersfeld . In 1952 he went to Hamburg , where he graduated from high school in 1955. He then completed a commercial apprenticeship until 1957 . He then took up his psychology studies with Curt Bondy at the University of Hamburg , which he graduated with a diploma in 1961 . He then went to the USA, where he was followed by his wife, whom he had married shortly before his departure. He received a Fulbright scholarship from New Mexico State University . Between 1962 and 1965 he received his PhD from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville .

Grossmann returned to Germany in 1965 and was a scientific assistant in zoology at the Institute for Biology at the University of Freiburg until 1970 . There he received a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for two years . He completed his habilitation in 1970 in Freiburg in two subjects, in psychology with Robert Heiss and in behavioral biology with Bernhard Hassenstein . Grossmann used his time at the zoological institute to study ethology , which, as he writes on his website, he experienced as a " Darwinist [s] contrast program" to the comparative psychology (i.e. comparative psychology) of the USA at the time. During this time, at an invitation from Konrad Lorenz, he also had the opportunity to observe the hierarchical behavior of gray geese at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen . His experimental work dealt with honey bees . During the preparatory work on Hassenstein's book Behavioral Biology of the Child , on which his wife contributed, the couple came into contact with the bonding concepts of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth . In 1973 they visited Ainsworth. With this at the latest, Grossman and his wife's professional orientation was sealed.

Three years earlier, in October 1970, Grossmann had started working as a full professor at the Pedagogical University of Westphalia-Lippe in Bielefeld . In 1978 he moved to the University of Regensburg to the chair of psychology and focused on attachment research. He stayed there until his retirement in 2003. He turned down a call to the University of Frankfurt in 1978, as did the call to Bochum in 1984 .

Act

"With a long-term study over decades, the psychologist couple Karin and Klaus Grossmann revolutionized education," wrote Hasel in 2012 in the Berlin Tagesspiegel .

“For most, a playground is just a collection of play equipment. The psychologists Klaus and Karin Grossmann, on the other hand, have a laboratory dedicated entirely to their life topic, namely the relationship between parents and their children. Hardly anyone in Germany knows exactly how things are going. For around two decades, the couple, he is 77 and she is 70, accompanied around 100 German families and translated their findings into a concept that has become widely known. It is called bonding and describes the affective bond that connects parents with their children and appears in almost every parenting guide today. But although the Grossmanns have strongly shaped family life in Germany, the prevailing ideas and values, hardly anyone outside of the professional world knows their name. "

- Verena Friederike Hasel : Tagesspiegel

The list of publications that Grossmann put together with his own works - partly published together with his wife - and the works of his employees, bears witness to the professional work of the research group. A total of five languages ​​were published. Wife Karin submitted her own list of her scientific contributions. In 2015, for example, she gave a lecture published on YouTube at the specialist conference of the Heiligenkreuz University of Applied Sciences about attachment in child development .

One year after visiting Mary Ainsworth, the Grossmanns began their long-term study in 1974 with the aim of using attachment theory to research the development of healthy children from birth to adulthood of 22 years. “The research included investigations in other cultures, examined the importance of exploration and the role of the father for the social and emotional development of the child,” writes Grossmann.

Media reports

Grossmann and his wife are rarely mentioned in the media. Hasel's article from September 2012 in the Tagesspiegel is one of the exceptions, as is a radio broadcast in Austria.

Hasel reports on the two scientists and describes their research design clearly and comprehensibly for laypeople. She met the two of them when they were presenting their results to a group of psychotherapists in Berlin .

“It was geese that showed the Grossmanns their way to the children,” she writes - also tracing the history of the project. When Grossmann and his wife observed the social behavior of the gray geese with Lorenz in the moor , the attachment researcher Ainsworth decided almost simultaneously in the USA to observe children instead of carrying out complicated experiments. She found out what has long since become part of everyday knowledge , namely that “already one year olds show systematic behavioral differences”. She also found that children who are unresponsive to separation and who may appear independent to some people can be under significant stress . At a time when "upbringing was marked by hardening, Ainsworth's attachment theory represented an unusual partisanship for the child's soul". The Grossmanns liked that, but they wanted to watch the children from birth. This led to a cooperation agreement with the clinic in Bielefeld, where Klaus Grossman had just become a professor. The midwives called when a woman was admitted to labor , and Karin Grossmann immediately drove to the clinic. This gave her the opportunity to observe the great differences in the behavior of the mothers right after the birth. Karin Grossmann was able to experience 51 births in 1976 alone. Over the years there were more than a hundred, later in Regensburg. In each of the following 22 years of life, the children were accompanied. Scientists visited when the children were “two, six, twelve, 18 and 24 months old, and further examinations followed at three, five, six, ten, 16 and 22 years of age”.

A total of eight scientists each, it is said, got to know the growing children. The collected data alone resulted in 220 theses . Hasel summarizes the results:

“In their study, the securely bound - those who cried when the mother left - had an advantage in the long run. As four-year-olds they played more concentrated in kindergarten, during puberty they were better able to deal with rejection and as adults they were more likely to admit insecurity in love matters. In other words, whoever was allowed to be dependent as a child later became more independent internally. Internalizing that, say the Grossmanns, was difficult for the Germans. While there was always great interest in the USA, in this country no one wanted to know about attachment research for a long time. 'In Germany, the Prussian officer family dominates', says Klaus Grossmann and Karin Grossmann adds: 'Independence is promoted, one has no heart for weakness.' "

- Verena Friederike Hasel : Tagesspiegel

According to their own statements, the study creators are still in contact with some of the people researched and sometimes learn about the arrival of the next generation.

“Like an invisible bond, ties hold the people who are important to each other together - more or less secure, better or less successful,” said Austrian radio at the turn of the year 2017. The contribution about the Grossmanns on New Year's Eve was designed by Johann Kneihs. The meeting with Konrad Lorenz was "one of the impulses for a scientific revolution"; the couple are among the "pioneers of attachment research in the German-speaking world and beyond". In the meantime, attachment research is "an indispensable part of the human sciences ". Many of the scientists trained by Karin and Klaus Grossmann have now researched and taught themselves at international universities.

Memberships

Klaus Grossmann is a member of the following professional associations:

  • Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
  • International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD)
  • German Society for Psychology (DGfPs)
  • International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE)
  • Ethological society
  • American Psychological Association (APA)
  • International Society for Research on Emotions (ISRE)
  • Wilhelm Wundt Society

Fonts (selection)

  • Theoretical and historical perspectives in attachment research . In: Lieselotte Ahnert (ed.): Early attachment. Origin and development . 4th edition. Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-497-02857-3 , pp. 21-41 .
  • Karl Heinz Brisch , Klaus E. Grossmann, Karin Grossmann, Lotte Köhler (eds.): Attachment and spiritual development paths. Basics, prevention and clinical practice . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-96186-7 (English: Attachment from Infancy to Adulthood. New Perspectives in Attachment Theory and Developmental Pathways. Applications in Prevention, Intervention and Clinical Practice .).
  • Klaus E. Grossmann, Karin Grossmann (eds.): Attachment and human development. John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and the basics of attachment theory . 4th edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-608-94936-0 .
  • Karin Grossmann, Klaus E. Grossmann: Attachments. The fabric of mental security . 5th edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-608-94720-5 .
  • CS Carter, L. Ahnert, KE Grossmann a. a. (Ed.): Attachment and bonding. A new synthesis (=  Dahlem Workshop Report . Volume 92 ). The MIT Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 978-0-262-03348-0 (English).
  • Klaus E. Grossmann, Karin Grossmann, Everett Waters (Eds.): Attachment from Infancy to Adulthood. The Major Longitudinal Studies . Guilford Publications, New York, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-59385-145-3 (English).

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Who is who? 22nd edition (1983). P. 408.
  2. ↑ Homepage of Prof. Dr. Klaus Grossmann and Dr. Karin Grossmann. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  3. ^ Grossmann: Career. In: Grossmann website. Retrieved July 28, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b About me. In: Grossmann website. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Verena Friederike Hasel: So check carefully how early it binds. In: Tagesspiegel. September 29, 2012. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Bernhard Hassenstein: Behavioral Biology of the Child . 6th edition. Monsenstein and Vannerdat , Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-938568-51-4 (in collaboration with Helma Hassenstein).
  7. ↑ Publications. In: Grossmann website. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Publications. Publications Karin Grossmann without Klaus E. Grossmann. In: Grossmann website. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  9. ↑ RPP Institute: Attachment in Child Development (Karin Grossmann) on YouTube , October 22, 2015, accessed on July 28, 2019 (39:43).
  10. ^ Research. In: Grossmann website. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Johann Kneihs: Karin and Klaus Grossmann, attachment researchers. In: Austria 1 . December 31, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Grossmann, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grossmann, Klaus Erwin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist, university professor and attachment researcher
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig