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Summary: What factors determine the chances of being appointed to a chair in Germany? We propose to derive hypotheses from discrimination theory, social and human capital theory, and the signaling approach. In a survey we sampled scholars from mathematics, law and sociology who had completed their Habilitation ("second book") from 1985 and 2005 at West German universities. A young age at the time of completion of the Habilitation is beneficial across all disciplines. In sociology, the number of publications included in the Science Citation Index is the most important factor in attaining a chair, and women are at an advantage when they face the same conditions as do men. In the field of law, parents' years of education have a significant impact on success, as has having a highly respected mentor. In mathematics, the chances of getting a professorship increase significantly with high occupational prestige of the parents, the share of time spent in research, the specialty of applied mathematics, or having a mentor with a high reputation. Keywords

Studies show that the unemployed face serious disadvantages in the labour market and that the social stigma of unemployment is one explanation. In this paper, we focus on the unemployed's expectations of being stigmatized (stigma consciousness) and the consequences of such negative expectations on job search attitudes and behaviour. Using data from the panel study "Labour Market and Social Security" (PASS), we find that the unemployed with high stigma consciousness suffer from reduced well-being and health. Regarding job search, the stigmatized unemployed are more likely to expect that their chances of re-employment are low, but in contrast, they are more likely to place a high value on becoming re-employed. Instead of becoming discouraged and passive, we find that stigmatized unemployed individuals increase their job search effort compared to other unemployed individuals. However, despite their higher job search effort, the stigma-conscious unemployed do not have better re-employment chances.

A field experiment was conducted in Germany to explore whether driver characteristics and the social status of cars are related to an aggressive response. Drivers waiting at a traffic light (N = 57) were blocked by an experimental car. The amount of time that elapsed until the drivers responded by honking their horns or beaming their headlights was recorded, and bivariate and multivariate methods of survival analysis were used to analyze the data. The status of the blocked cars was positively correlated with the tendency toward an aggressive response.

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