Laura Buchinger

External LIFE Fellow since 2020, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW) Berlin

I am a PhD candidate at the Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research. For the most part of my academic and professional path, I have been drawn to the positive side of psychology, driven by the question of what makes a “good life.” During my master’s program at Freie Universität Berlin and a research internship at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, I studied the impact of mindfulness meditation on well-being and resilience whilst completing a training to become a yoga teacher. In Vancouver, I was also part of the Sustainable Building Science Project, in a team, which investigated the effect of the physical work environment on job satisfaction and ultimately overall wellbeing. After returning to Germany and completing my degree in Clinical and Health Psychology (MSc) in 2016, I was Inspired to improve people’s (work) lives hands-on. I left academia and worked for a consulting company in the field of occupational health and safety for three years before returning in fall 2019 to begin my doctoral studies. For my dissertation project, I am working with David Richter and Gert Wagner. The focus of my research is on changes in major life goals over the lifespan and their relation to subjective well-being. More specifically, I am interested in selective engagement in different goals conditional on regional and familial context factors and critical life events.

Publications

Buchinger, L., Richter, D., & Heckhausen, J. (2022). The development of life goals over the adult lifespan. Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 77(5), 905–915. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbab154