Report of December 14, 2009
The prestigious 2010 Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation has been awarded to Ulman Lindenberger, Director of the Research Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and Research Professor of the department "Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP)" at the DIW Berlin. This is the second consecutive year that the coveted Leibniz Prize goes to a SOEP user, after being awarded to Armin Falk in 2009.
Lindenberger is running the Berlin Aging Study, II, which is a related study to the SOEP. He studies the potential and limits of cognitive aging and uses approaches from the neurosciences, gerontology and developmental pyschology. He has been able to demonstrate that the mental and cognitive abilities of older people are not determined by natural factors like age but change and can therefore be improved through their own actions. This finding is of particular social policy importance given the demographic changes underway in our society.
Further information (in German) can be found at:http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news347510