Welcome to Klaus Wahl:                 

Psychosocial Analyses and Prevention – Information Service  (PAPIS) 

Is violence increasing?

Are children and adolescents becoming more and more aggressive?

What are the causes of violence and xenophobia?

What can parents, educators and politicians do?

What does effective prevention look like?  

The education of children and adolescents has become a stressful challenge. Families, nursery schools, schools, youth services, doctors, police, judiciary, and politics in modern society are faced with problems to which they are not sufficiently prepared. Different scientific branches have conducted many studies on these issues, but most of the research is unconnected.

Prof. Klaus Wahl's PAPIS provides an interdisciplinary integration of current research results aiming at targeted and effective solutions.

PAPIS provides state-of-the-art scientific knowledge, presenting in a meaningful way results of the abundant studies of neuroscience, psychology, and sociology on the causes of psychological and social problems. Further PAPIS can identify factors that can help to solve your problems. The focus is on prevention before problems become more difficult. Depending on the topic, Klaus Wahl can also draw on an interdisciplinary network of experts.

 Prof. Dr. Klaus Wahl   

studied sociology, psychology, philosophy, economics, and political science in Stuttgart and Munich. After receiving his degree in sociology from the University of Munich (1969), he joined the German Youth Institute (Deutsches Jugendinstitut, DJI, Munich) as a social researcher in 1970, eventually becoming the Institute’s scientific chief of staff. While pursuing his career, he earned a doctorate at the University of Bamberg under the supervision of Ulrich Beck (1988) and qualified as a university lecturer with a habilitation thesis at the University of Munich (1998). He taught as professor at the universities of Munich (Germany) and as visiting professor at universities in Venice (Italy), Santiago de Chile (Chile), and Brasília (Brazil). In 2008, he was Fellow at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst. In 2010, he founded “Psychosociological Analyses and Prevention – Information System” in Munich.

Klaus Wahl is interested in the integration of sociological, psychological, and biological research to improve the understanding of social behavior. His theoretical, methodological, and empirical work is on bio-psycho-sociology, “depth sociology”, and social emotions, as well as on the development of every-day morals, aggression, xenophobia, right-wing extremism, and prevention of anti-social behavior. He touched upon these issues in several of his published books:

• “Families are different“(1980) summarizes an intensive study on the everyday problems of working class parents (co-authored with Tüllmann, Honig, and Gravenhorst);
• “Scientificity and interests” (1982) discusses the execution of this subjectivity-oriented study, which was challenged by the different expectations of research subjects, the government agencies giving financial support, and scientific standards (co-authored with Honig and Gravenhorst);
• “The modernization trap” (1989) shows that modernity promised increasing control over one’s own living conditions, recognition of one’s own efforts, impressive technical and medical progress, more economic, social, and political participation, free intimate relations based on romantic love, etc. However, in reality, for some parts of society such promises were not fulfilled. These people were losers in the education system and the labor market, they did not find recognition and self-esteem in their work and in private relations, with the consequence of frustration, depression, or violence;
• “Critique of sociological reason” (2000) describes sociology’s traditional preference for rationalistic action theories, its blindness for emotional motives of social behavior, and its biophobia (distance to biology) since the founding fathers of this science. Instead, Wahl proposes a bottom-up research strategy in terms of a bio-psycho-sociological approach to explain social behavior from aggression and xenophobia to love and moral behavior;
• “Xenophobia. On the tracks of extreme emotions” (2001) presents innovative interdisciplinary research on adolescents’ relations to compatriots and foreigners (co-authored with Tramitz and Blumtritt);
• “Skinheads, neo-Nazis, and followers” (2003) addresses again this topic through several studies on xenophobic and right-wing extremist perpetrators;
• “Friend or foe? Biographies of young violent perpetrators as a key to education for tolerance in families, preschool, and school” (2007) provides information for preschool and school teachers.
• “Offenders or victims? Youth violence – causes and prevention” (2009) summarizes research on several types of adolescents’ aggression from bullying to political violence (co-authored with Hess);
• “Aggression and violence” (2009, 2013) publishes an interdisciplinary research overview of the interaction of evolutionary, genetic, epigenetic, neural, psychic, and social mechanisms operating in aggression;
• “How does morality come into the head?” (2015) presents an analogous effort to describe the multi-factor genesis of morals and to criticize theories on the motivating force of moral values and cognitive value education. Instead, he proposes programs supporting the development of emotional and social competence in children.

Besides, in 1990 Wahl founded the scientific magazine “DISKURS” (Discourse – studies of childhood, youth, family, and society) which is continued since 2006 as a “Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung” (Discourse - Childhood and youth research).

Bibliography

Books (selection)

Familien sind anders! Wie sie sich selbst sehen. Anstöße für eine neue Familienpolitik. (with G. Tüllmann, M.-S. Honig, L. Gravenhorst). (Families are different). rororo aktuell, Reinbek 1980, ISBN 3-499-14636-3   

Wissenschaftlichkeit und Interessen. Zur Herstellung subjektivitätsorientierter Sozialforschung. (with M.-S. Honig, L. Gravenhorst). (Scientificity and interests. The making of subjectivity-oriented social research). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M. 1982, ISBN 3-518-27998-X   

Die Modernisierungsfalle. Gesellschaft, Selbstbewußtsein und Gewalt. (The modernization trap. Society, self-esteem, and violence). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M. 1989, ISBN 3-518-28442-8   

Studien über Gewalt in Familien. Gesellschaftliche Erfahrungen, Selbstbewußtsein, Gewalttätigkeit. (Studies on violence in families). DJI Deutsches Jugendinstitut, München 1990, ISBN 3-87966-313-0   

Kritik der soziologischen Vernunft. Sondierungen zu einer Tiefensoziologie. (Critique of sociological reason. Explorations for a depth sociology). Velbrück Wissenschaft, Weilerswist 2000, ISBN 3-934730-16-7   

Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Auf den Spuren extremer Emotionen. (with Ch. Tramitz, J. Blumtritt). (Xenophobia. On the tracks of extreme emotions). Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2001, distributed by VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden, ISBN 3-8100-3137-2   

Skinheads, Neonazis, Mitläufer. Täterstudien und Prävention. (Ed.). (Skinheads, neo-Nazis, followers. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003, Auslieferung: VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden, ISBN 3-8100-3171-2   

Helfen "Super Nanny" und Co.? Ratlose Eltern - Herausforderung für die Elternbildung. (Hrsg. mit K. Hees). (Does “Super Nanny” help? Helpless parents – a challenge for parent education). Beltz, Weinheim 2006. Neuauflage: Cornelsen Scriptor 2007, ISBN 978-3-589-25399-9   

Vertragen oder schlagen? Biografien jugendlicher Gewalttäter als Schlüssel für eine Erziehung zur Toleranz in Familie, Kindergarten und Schule. (Friend or foe? Biographies of young violent perpetrators as a key to education for tolerance in families, kindergarten, and school).  Cornelsen Scriptor, Berlin/ Düsseldorf/ Mannheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-589-24511-6   

Täter oder Opfer? Jugendgewalt – Ursachen und Prävention. (with K. Hees). (Offenders or victims? Youth violence – causes and prevention). Reinhardt, München 2009, ISBN 978-3-497-02037-9   

Aggression und Gewalt. Ein biologischer, psychologischer und sozialwissenschaftlicher Überblick. (Aggression and violence. A biological, psychological, and social scientific review). Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8274-2388-7  . New edition 2012, ISBN 978-3-8274-3120-2    .

Wie kommt die Moral in den Kopf? Von der Werteerziehung zur Persönlichkeitsförderung. Springer (How does morality come into the head? From value education to support for personality development). Spektrum, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-642-55407-0  .

The Radical Right. Biopsychosocial Roots and International Variations (In collaboration with Heather Painter). London: Palgrave Macmillan / Cham: Springer Nature 2020

Articles (selection)

Development of Xenophobia and Aggression. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 26, 2002, 2, pp. 247–256.

Враждебността към чуждия – изследователски резултати от дълбинна социологическа перспектива. (Xenophobia – Research results in a depth-sociological perspective) Социологически проблеми. (Sociological Problems) 34, 2002, 1-2, pp. 242–255.

Roots of Xenophobia and Violence against Migrants. Personality, Parents, Pedagogues, Peers, and Emotion. In D. Hoerder, Y. Hébert, I. Schmitt, (Eds.) Negotiating Transcultural Lives. Belongings and Social Capital among Youth in Comparative Perspective. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2005, pp. 59–68.

Das Paradoxon der Willensfreiheit und seine Entwicklung im Kind. (The paradox of free will and ist development in the child).  Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung 1(1), 2006, pp. 117–139.

Ultraprawicowe i ksenofobiczne wyobrażenia i typy zachowań - wyniki badań nad młodzieżą. (Radical right-wing and xenophobe ideologies and behaviors in Germany. Findings of youth research) In M. Minkenberg, D. Sucker, A. Wenninger (Eds.): Prawicowy radykalizm i ksenofobia w Polsce i w Niemczech. Nacjonalne i europejskie perpepktywy. (Radical rigth and xenophobia in Germany and Poland. National und European Perspectives). Informationszentrum Sozialwissenschaften, Bonn 2006, pp. 146–163.

Neurophysiological Correlates of Laboratory-Induced Aggression in Young Men with and without a History of Violence. PLoS ONE. 6(7) 2011: e22599 (with D. Wiswede, S. Taubner, Th. F. Münte, G. Roth, D. Strüber, U. M. Krämer).

Parental Influences on the Prevalence and Development of Child Aggressiveness.  Journal of Child and Family Studies 21, 2012, 2, pp. 344–355 (with C. Metzner). 

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