At any given moment, our senses are assaulted with a flood of information from the environment around us. We need to pick our way through all this information in order to be able to effectively respond to that what is relevant to us. In most cases we are usually able to select information relevant to our intentions from what is not relevant. However, what happens to the information that is not relevant to us? Is this irrelevant information completely ignored so that it does not affect our actions? The literature suggests that even though we mayrnignore an irrelevant stimulus, it may still interfere with our actions. One of the ways in which irrelevant stimuli can affect actions is by retrieving a response with which it was associated. An irrelevant stimulus that is presented in close temporal contiguity with a relevant stimulus can be associated with the response made to the relevant stimulus " an observation termed distractor-response binding (Rothermund, Wentura, & De Houwer, 2005). The studies presented in this work take a closer look at such distractor-response bindings, and therncircumstances in which they occur. Specifically, the study reported in chapter 6 examined whether only an exact repetition of the distractor can retrieve the response with which it was associated, or whether even similar distractors may cause retrieval. The results suggested that even repeating a similar distractor caused retrieval, albeit less than an exact repetition. In chapter 7, the existence of bindings between a distractor and a response were tested beyond arnperceptual level, to see whether they exist at an (abstract) conceptual level. Similar to perceptual repetition, distractor-based retrieval of the response was observed for the repetition of concepts. The study reported in chapter 8 of this work examined the influence of attention on the feature-response binding of irrelevant features. The results pointed towards a stronger binding effects when attention was directed towards the irrelevant feature compared to whenrnit was not. The study in chapter 9 presented here looked at the processes underlying distractor-based retrieval and distractor inhibition. The data suggest that motor processes underlie distractor-based retrieval and cognitive process underlie distractor inhibition. Finally, the findings of all four studies are also discussed in the context of learning.

Fostering positive and realistic self-concepts of individuals is a major goal in education worldwide (Trautwein & Möller, 2016). Individuals spend most of their childhood and adolescence in school. Thus, schools are important contexts for individuals to develop positive self-perceptions such as self-concepts. In order to enhance positive self-concepts in educational settings and in general, it is indispensable to have a comprehensive knowledge about the development and structure of self-concepts and their determinants. To date, extensive empirical and theoretical work on antecedents and change processes of self-concept has been conducted. However, several research gaps still exist, and several of these are the focus of the present dissertation. Specifically, these research gaps encompass (a) the development of multiple self-concepts from multiple perspectives regarding stability and change, (b) the direction of longitudinal interplay between self-concept facets over the entire time period from childhood to late adolescence, and (c) the evidence that a recently developed structural model of academic self-concept (nested Marsh/Shavelson model [Brunner et al., 2010]) fits the data in elementary school students, (d) the investigation of structural changes in academic self-concept profile formation within this model, (e) the investigation of dimensional comparison processes as determinants of academic self-concept profile formation in elementary school students within the internal/external frame of reference model (I/E model; Marsh, 1986), (f) the test of moderating variables for dimensional comparison processes in elementary school, (g) the test of the key assumptions of the I/E model that effects of dimensional comparisons depend to a large degree on the existence of achievement differences between subjects, and (h) the generalizability of the findings regarding the I/E model over different statistical analytic methods. Thus, the aim of the present dissertation is to contribute to close these gaps with three studies. Thereby, data from German students enrolled in elementary school to secondary school education were gathered in three projects comprising the developmental time span from childhood to adolescence (ages 6 to 20). Three vital self-concept areas in childhood and adolescence were in-vestigated: general self-concept (i.e., self-esteem), academic self-concepts (general, math, reading, writing, native language), and social self-concepts (of acceptance and assertion). In all studies, data were analyzed within a latent variable framework. Findings are discussed with respect to the research aims of acquiring more comprehensive knowledge on the structure and development of significant self-concept in childhood and adolescence and their determinants. In addition, theoretical and practical implications derived from the findings of the present studies are outlined. Strengths and limitations of the present dissertation are discussed. Finally, an outlook for future research on self-concepts is given.

“Sozialismus und Demokratie sind heute nicht mehr bloße Parteifragen, es sind Lebensfragen. Schule und Lehrer kommen an ihnen nicht vorbei (…), durch gediegenen Unterricht, vor allem aber durch charakterbildende Erziehung das Volk von morgen zu seiner großen Aufgabe des Mitherrschens zu befähigen.” – ein luxemburger Schulfreund, 1920

The dissertation deals with methods to improve design-based and model-assisted estimation techniques for surveys in a finite population framework. The focus is on the development of the statistical methodology as well as their implementation by means of tailor-made numerical optimization strategies. In that regard, the developed methods aim at computing statistics for several potentially conflicting variables of interest at aggregated and disaggregated levels of the population on the basis of one single survey. The work can be divided into two main research questions, which are briefly explained in the following sections. First, an optimal multivariate allocation method is developed taking into account several stratification levels. This approach results in a multi-objective optimization problem due to the simultaneous consideration of several variables of interest. In preparation for the numerical solution, several scalarization and standardization techniques are presented, which represent the different preferences of potential users. In addition, it is shown that by solving the problem scalarized with a weighted sum for all combinations of weights, the entire Pareto frontier of the original problem can be generated. By exploiting the special structure of the problem, the scalarized problems can be efficiently solved by a semismooth Newton method. In order to apply this numerical method to other scalarization techniques as well, an alternative approach is suggested, which traces the problem back to the weighted sum case. To address regional estimation quality requirements at multiple stratification levels, the potential use of upper bounds for regional variances is integrated into the method. In addition to restrictions on regional estimates, the method enables the consideration of box-constraints for the stratum-specific sample sizes, allowing minimum and maximum stratum-specific sampling fractions to be defined. In addition to the allocation method, a generalized calibration method is developed, which is supposed to achieve coherent and efficient estimates at different stratification levels. The developed calibration method takes into account a very large number of benchmarks at different stratification levels, which may be obtained from different sources such as registers, paradata or other surveys using different estimation techniques. In order to incorporate the heterogeneous quality and the multitude of benchmarks, a relaxation of selected benchmarks is proposed. In that regard, predefined tolerances are assigned to problematic benchmarks at low aggregation levels in order to avoid an exact fulfillment. In addition, the generalized calibration method allows the use of box-constraints for the correction weights in order to avoid an extremely high variation of the weights. Furthermore, a variance estimation by means of a rescaling bootstrap is presented. Both developed methods are analyzed and compared with existing methods in extensive simulation studies on the basis of a realistic synthetic data set of all households in Germany. Due to the similar requirements and objectives, both methods can be successively applied to a single survey in order to combine their efficiency advantages. In addition, both methods can be solved in a time-efficient manner using very comparable optimization approaches. These are based on transformations of the optimality conditions. The dimension of the resulting system of equations is ultimately independent of the dimension of the original problem, which enables the application even for very large problem instances.

The implicit power motive is one of the most researched motives in motivational psychology—at least in adults. Children have rarely been subject to investigation and there are virtually no results on behavioral and affective correlates of the implicit power motive in children. As behavior and affect are important components of conceptual validation, the empirical data in this dissertation focused on identifying three correlates, namely resource control behavior (study 1), power stress (study 2), and persuasive behavior (study 3). In each study, the implicit power motive was measured via the Picture Story Exercise, using an adapted version for children. Children across samples were between 4 and 11 years old. Results from study 1 and 2 showed that children’s power-related behavior corresponded with evidence from adult samples: children with a high implicit power motive secure attractive resources and show negative reactions to a thwarted attempt to exert influence. Study 3 contradicted existing evidence with adults in that children’s persuasive behavior was not associated with nonverbal, but with verbal strategies of persuasion. Despite this inconsistency, these results are, together with the validation of a child-friendly Picture Story Exercise version, an important step into further investigating and confirming the concept of the implicit power motive and how to measure it in children.