Lead: Dr. Robin Bachmann

We integrate social psychology and behavioral economics to investigate economic and well-being outcomes - particularly how related behavior both shapes and is shaped by socioeconomic life circumstances. By focusing on social psychological factors, we uncover dynamics that traditional behavioral approaches often miss. Our work combines large-scale household data from Germany and the UK with established psychological surveys and experiments. Our research aims to enhance economic and overall well-being, promote greater equality, and to inform more effective public policies.

 

Projects

• Identity variability and social constraints (UK) (ongoing)
  Cooperation with Ilka H. Gleibs (London School of Economics) and Jolanda Jetten (University of Queensland)
• Social connectedness and physical and mental health (UK) (ongoing)
  Cooperation with Nik Steffens (University of Queensland) and Rudolf Kerschreiter (Freie Universität Berlin)
• Occupational identity and stress (UK) (ongoing)
  Cooperation with Anne Casper (Freie Universität Berlin)
• Status primes and investment decisions (DE) (completed)
  Cooperation with Ilka H. Gleibs (London School of Economics) and Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington (New York University Abu Dhabi)
• Self-concepts and capital income (UK) (completed)
  Cooperation with Ilka H. Gleibs (London School of Economics) and Liam Delaney (London School of Economics)

 

SOEP-IS Modul Identity and Life-Outcomes in Germany (upcoming)

Cooperation with Rudolf Kerschreiter (Freie Universität Berlin), Rolf van Dick (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), and Michael Kosfeld (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

We proposed and successfully secured the inclusion of a 16-item identity module in the 2026 wave of the Socioeconomic Panel – Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS) of the German Institute for Economic Research (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, DIW). Most socioeconomic research categorizes people into social groups using standard demographic variables, overlooking how the psychological significance of group memberships – social identity – shapes behavior. With this new SOEP-IS module, we can systematically examine, in a representative German sample, how different identities influence life outcomes such as economic, social, physical, and mental well-being, and compare their effects to commonly studied economic and psychological factors like risk and time preferences.

 

Ongoing graduate research projects

• Political identity and economic and well-being outcomes (Fanni Kleilein)

 

Selected academic publications

• Bachmann, R., Gleibs, I. H., & Delaney, L. (2026). Social identity and capital income: A social psychological approach to identity economics using UK household data. British Journal of Social Psychology, 65(1), e70025. http://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.70025 
• Bachmann, R. (2025). Money Silences “Us”: Financial Topics Erode Collective Identity in the German Parliament. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2025(1), 21012. https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/AMPROC.2025.277bp [Charles H. Levine Award for Best Conference Paper 2025]
• Bachmann, R., Scheel, T., & Kerschreiter, R. (2024). Change Credit: The compensatory effects of leader group prototypicality and organizational identity strength in organizational change. Journal of Change Management, 24(4), 346-361. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2024.2430126