How socio-cultural contexts shape individual functioning is of prime interest for psychological inquiry. Secular increases favoring later-born cohorts in fluid intelligence measures are widely documented for young adults. In the current study, we quantify such trends in old age using data from...

There are strong two-way links between parent and child happiness (life satisfaction), even for 'children' who have grown up, moved to their own home and partnered themselves. German panel evidence shows that transmission of (un)happiness from parents to children is partly due to transmission of...

Up to now in the social sciences, what is known as citizen science—the involvement of interested citizens in scientific surveys—has been used relatively little as a method of empirical social research. While the “citizens’ dialogues” that are becoming more widespread in politics can be...

Like many medical studies, the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE·II) is based on a non·random "convenience sample" of self·recruited participants. To study processes of selectivity in BASE·II, we used an identical questionnaire to compare BASE·II with a large, representative reference study, the...