MZES Social Science Data Lab
LightNews LightNews
banner
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
MZES Social Science Data Lab
@mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
840 followers 0 following 55 posts
MZES Social Science Data Lab. An event series for data and methods in the social sciences. Check out our tutorials on our blog Methods Bites: https://socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de
Posts Replies Media Videos
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "What Shapes Voter Perceptions of Election Polls? The Impact of Partisanship and Visual Design"

👤 @eliaskoch.bsky.social (Hertie School)

🗓️ Wed, November 5, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
What Shapes Voter Perceptions of Election Polls? The Impact of Partisanship and Visual Design Hybrid event [A5, 6, Room A231 + Zoom] November 05, 2025, 13:45-15:15 Abstract Election polls are a central feature of modern electoral campaigns, providing voters with information that can guide their decisions. Yet, voters are often confronted with many polls showing volatile or conflicting outcomes, and media outlets present these polls in very different ways. This raises two key questions: (1) How do voters judge the trustworthiness of a poll’s results? and (2) How does the way a poll is presented affect these perceptions? I present experimental evidence from two large-scale studies in Germany. Together, they show that both the content of a poll and the way it is presented influence voter perceptions, offering new insights into how individuals navigate modern campaigns environments. Presenter(s) Elias Koch is a Doctoral Researcher at the Research Training Group DYNAMICS (HU Berlin/Hertie School) and a Research Associate at the Hertie School in Berlin. His research explores party competition and political behaviour in established democracies, with a particular focus on shifting public opinion landscapes.
October 29, 2025 at 10:40 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Large Language Models for Social Research: Potentials and Challenges"

👤 Indira Sen (University of Mannheim)

🗓️ Wed, October 22, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events/
Large Language Models for Social Research: Potentials and Challenges Hybrid event [A5, 6, Room A231 + Zoom] Oktober 22, 2025, 13:45-15:15 Abstract Large Language Models (LLMs) have the potential to revolutionize the social sciences—for example, by accelerating content analysis or enabling realistic social simulations. In this workshop, I will discuss how LLMs can be applied and audited for social science applications, including the generation of synthetic survey responses and content analysis. I will also address how biases in LLMs can hinder these applications and explore ways to better surface and understand these biases. Finally, I will present a hands-on use case demonstrating how LLMs can be guided using demographic personas for both content analysis and simulated surveys. Presenter(s) Indira Sen is a Junior Faculty member at the University of Mannheim’s Business School in the Chair of Data Science for the Social and Economic Sciences. Her work lies at the intersection of NLP and Computational Social Science, specifically in developing and evaluating representative and equitable language technology, including Large Language Models.
October 15, 2025 at 10:02 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Roundtable Discussion: New Developments in Large-Scale Survey Data in Germany"

👤 Claudia Schmiedeberg, Pablo Christmann, Stefanie Wolter, Michael Bergmann, Arne Bethmann

🗓️ Wed, September 24, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Roundtable Discussion: New Developments in Large-Scale Survey Data in Germany Hybrid event [A5, 6, Room A231 + Zoom] September 24, 2025, 13:45-15:15 Abstract The roundtable brings together researchers from leading institutes and survey programs in Germany including the German Longitudinal Environmental Study (GLEN), the Family Research and Demographic Panel (FreDA), the Research Data Center of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), and the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The discussion will focus on current innovations, challenges, and opportunities in large-scale survey data from the data producers’ and users’ perspective. Presenter(s) Claudia Schmiedeberg is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology at LMU Munich. Her research focuses on survey methodology, environmental topics, and couple relationships. Pablo Christmann is the project coordinator of FReDA – The German Family Demography Panel Study and a postdoctoral researcher at GESIS. His main research interests include political attitudes as well as survey methodology and methods. Stefanie Wolter is a senior researcher at the Research Data Center of the Federal Employment Agency. She is project head of the Linked Personnel Panel, and responsible for linking enterprise and establishment data. Her research focuses on flexible work and within-firm inequality. Michael Bergmann is a survey methodologist with a doctorate in social sciences from the University of Mannheim. As part of a joint appointment by htw saar and SBI, he works as head of the Survey Methodology department for the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and as professor of survey methodology at the Faculty of Social Sciences. His research interests include methods for improving the quality of survey data, the investigation of the effects of different survey modes on data quality in panel studies, and the analysis of interviewer behavior. In terms of content, he is primarily …
September 18, 2025 at 2:18 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Assessing the Reproducibility of Observational Social Research"

👤
@lschaechtele.bsky.social (LMU Munich)

🗓️ Wed, September 10, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events/
Assessing the Reproducibility of Observational Social Research Hybrid event [A5, 6, Room A231 + Zoom] September 10, 2025, 13:45-15:15 Abstract Reproducibility – i.e., the extent to which results are consistent when re-running the same code on the same data – is a minimum requirement for credible empirical research. However, as prior audits have tended to look at selective samples, only little is known so far about its extent in the observational social sciences. In this input talk, I present insights from a large-scale reproducibility assessment of published social science papers that use data from the European Social Survey (ESS). Starting from an initial pool of 1,206 articles, we obtained research code for 385 papers and conducted a standardized reproducibility assessment on a random sample of 100. I will present insights into our method and our results, highlight common hurdles and pitfalls we encountered, and conclude by discussing low-cost measures that could help improve reproducibility at scale. Presenter(s) Laura Schächtele is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the LMU Munich and part of the DFG-funded meta-scientific research program META-REP. She holds a master’s degree in Sociology from the LMU Munich and has been a visiting researcher at the Meta-Research Center at Tilburg University. In her dissertation, she investigates the links between academic incentive structures, researchers’ strategic behavior, and scientific transparency. Her broader research interests include the sociology of science, social inequality, and quantitative methods of empirical social research
September 2, 2025 at 3:07 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
▶️ Social Science Data Lab: Fall 2025 Events

Six input talks by great researchers (see below ⤵️)!

🗓️ Details & Zoom:
socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events/

👥 Organizers:
@rubac.bsky.social,
@denis-cohen.bsky.social and Alexander Wenz
September 2, 2025 at 3:02 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Shuffled and Permutated Personas: How Reliable are LLMs at Emulating Personas?"

👤 @indiiigo.bsky.social Indira Sen (University of Mannheim)

🗓️ Wed, May 28, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de
Shuffled and Permutated Personas: How Reliable are LLMs at Emulating Personas? Large Language Models (LLMs) have the potential to revolutionize the social sciences—for example, by accelerating content analysis or enabling realistic social simulations. In this workshop, I will discuss how LLMs can be applied and audited for social science applications, including the generation of synthetic survey responses and content analysis. I will also address how biases in LLMs can hinder these applications and explore ways to better surface and understand these biases. Finally, I will present a hands-on use case demonstrating how LLMs can be guided using demographic personas for both content analysis and simulated surveys. Indira Sen is a Junior Faculty member at the University of Mannheim’s Business School in the Chair of Data Science for the Social and Economic Sciences. Her work lies at the intersection of NLP and Computational Social Science, specifically in developing and evaluating representative and equitable language technology, including Large Language Models.
May 23, 2025 at 8:39 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Forecasting the German Federal Election 2025 - Different Modelling Approaches"

👤 @hannahrajski.bsky.social (Uni Mannheim) & @cornelius-erfort.bsky.social (Witten/Herdecke Uni)

🗓️ Wed, May 21, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Forecasting the German Federal Election 2025 - Different Modelling Approaches Abstract The Zweitstimme.org project presents a comprehensive approach to forecasting the 2025 German federal election, combining multiple methodologies to predict both party vote shares (Zweitstimme) and constituency-level outcomes (Erststimme). This presentation showcases three distinct forecasting approaches: a dynamic Zweitstimme model, a proportional swing Erststimme model, and citizen forecasting. The project also communicated the forecasts and their uncertainties to the public, with results being shared in various media outlets. Presenter(s) Hannah Rajski is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim. She works in the project Election Forecasts for the German Federal Election 2025. Her main research interests lie in quantitative methods, comparative politics, and political sociology with a focus on political behaviour and elections. In her dissertation she analyses voters‘ expectations about election outcomes and how these can be aggregated into citizen forecasts. Hannah holds a bachelor’s degree in Politics, Administration and International Relations from Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany and a master’s degree in Politics and Public Administration from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Cornelius Erfort is Postdoc at the Witten/Herdecke University, working on the project Election Forecasts for the German Federal Election 2025. His general interests are in comparative politics and quantitative methods. More specifically, he is working on voter targeting, interest groups, and voting behavior. In his dissertation, he analyzed how parties use the target and tailor their digital election ads. He was a member of the Research Training Group DYNAMICS which is jointly organized by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Hertie School.
May 15, 2025 at 9:33 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Analyzing Survey Data with Weights – A Practical Introduction"

👤 Stefan Zins (Institute for Employment Research, IAB)

🗓️ Wed, April 30, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events/
"Analyzing Survey Data with Weights – A Practical Introduction" by Stefan Zins (Institute for Employment Research, IAB) Even if it is not apparent to many daily users of statistics, analyzing survey data can be one of the most challenging tasks in inferential statistics. Survey methodologists and statisticians have long acknowledged this, pointing to the so-called Total Survey Error (TSE). Although there is an awareness of the complex error structure, all too often, statistical inference is done with methods that implicitly assume rather simple errors that are straightforward to estimate. This is particularly true concerning the usage of survey weights. Often considered a nuisance, but necessary for unbiased estimates for so-called descriptive statistics, their effect on standard errors is seldom considered using the appropriate methodology. The lecture will give basic insights into the construction and logic of survey weights and the appropriate methods for using them for statistical inference.
April 28, 2025 at 9:01 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Surveying Diversity: Integrating Queer Perspectives in Survey Research"

👤 @lisadevries.bsky.social (German Institute for Adult Ed.)

🗓️ Wed, April 9, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events
Persistent discrimination against LGBTQI* people, along with recent developments such as rising violence and current backlash in some regions, highlights the urgent need for research on the (changing) living conditions of LGBTQI* people. However, current research on LGBTQI* people is often hindered by data limitations and gaps, and many survey providers and researchers struggle to incorporate queer perspectives into surveys adequately. This talk will give an overview of different methods, opportunities, and challenges of integrating queer perspectives in survey research. Based on practical examples and personal experiences, the talk will provide insights into the measurement of sexual orientation and gender identity, different sampling methods for reaching LGBTQI* people, and questionnaire design beyond heteronormativity. Finally, the talk will highlight the challenges and opportunities of data analysis in light of current research and developments.
April 7, 2025 at 7:47 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Digital Data, Contextual Complexities, and Lessons for Social Scientists"

👤 @nschwitter.bsky.social (University of Mannheim)

🗓️ Wed, March 5, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events/
2025-03-05 | Input talk | Nicole Schwitter (University of Mannheim) Digital Data, Contextual Complexities, and Lessons for Social Scientists more Hybrid event [A5, 6, Room A231 + Zoom] March 05, 2025, 13:45-15:15 Abstract With increasing digitalisation, data is everywhere - (seemingly) waiting to be harvested, by social scientists, from historic archives and search trends to Facebook friendships and open-source collaborations. Yet beneath this public surface lies the usual complexity of data generation, raising important questions about whether the observable actions represent meaningful concepts. This talk will serve as a cautionary reminder for social scientist to scrutinise their data, investigate and describe the data-generating context and community, and to (also) apply formal theory when measuring constructs. I will be drawing on several well-published examples and highlight their shortcomings to underscore these points and to suggest how we can – and need to – do better. Presenter(s) Nicole Schwitter is a postdoctoral researcher at the MZES and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick, where she studied offline interactions in online communities using Wikipedia as a case study. Her research explores (inter)group relations and social dynamics, with a strong interest in applying novel computational methods to social science questions.
February 27, 2025 at 9:27 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🆕 Content alert on Methods Bites & Workshop Video Recording

▶️ "Computationally Analyzing Politicians’ Body Language Using Pose Estimation"

👤 Oliver Rittmann (MZES, University of Mannheim)

🔗 Blogpost: socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/article/comp...
🔗 Video Recording: youtu.be/w6orbDvQSN4
Summary of the SSDL blogpost 'Computationally Analyzing Politicians’ Body Language Using Pose Estimation' by Oliver Rittmann (MZES University of Mannheim)
January 20, 2025 at 12:53 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Using YouTube Data for Social Science Research"

👤 @simko.bsky.social (Princeton University)

🗓️ Wed, Dec 4, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 socialsciencedatalab.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/page/events/
November 27, 2024 at 8:44 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Towards more life-course-sensitive decompositions of group-inequalities"

👤 @crowold.bsky.social (@mpidr.bsky.social)

🗓️ Wed, April 24, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
April 17, 2024 at 12:30 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Using AI tools for research"

👤 Olga Kononykhina (LMU Munich)

🗓️ Wed, April 17, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 Details: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
April 10, 2024 at 8:19 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Survey mastery: a deep dive into SQP 3.0 to enhance questionnaire development"

👤 @lydiarepke.bsky.social (GESIS)

🗓️ Wed, March 13, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 Details: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
March 6, 2024 at 12:54 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Models all the way down"

👤 Aysa Magazinnik (@hertiedatascience.bsky.social)

🗓️ Wed, Feb 21, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 Details: mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
Abstract and presenter bio
February 14, 2024 at 9:16 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Spring 2024 Events 🚨

Mark your calendars:

👤 Aysa Magazinnik (@hertiedatascience.bsky.social)
👤 Lydia Repke @lydiarepke.bsky.social (GESIS)
👤 Olga Kononykhina (LMU)
👤 Carla Rowold @crowold.bsky.social (Oxford)

🗓️ Details, ICS files, and Zoom links: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
Screenshot event schedule
January 18, 2024 at 11:27 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Power analysis for social science research"

👥 @denis-cohen.bsky.social and Alexander Wenz (MZES)

🗓️ Wed, Dec 06, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗Details: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
Abstract
November 30, 2023 at 10:19 AM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "Finding, accessing, and re-using research data"

👥 Irene Schumm (UB Mannheim) and Ulrich Krieger (UB Mannheim, BERD@NFDI)

🗓️ Wed, Nov 15, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 Details: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
Screenshot event description
November 9, 2023 at 1:31 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
Interested in our work? Here are some links to...

🗓️ 70+ past and upcoming events: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...

📜 20+ tutorials (www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...)

📺 30+ recorded talks (www.youtube.com/@mzesmethods...)

📄 60+ slides and scripts (github.com/socialscienc...)
Word cloud of most frequent terms on our website
October 11, 2023 at 2:19 PM
mzes-ssdl.bsky.social
🚨 Upcoming: "A beginner's guide to neural networks for social scientists"

👤 John 'Jack' Collins (@MZESUniMannheim)

🗓️ Wed, Oct 18, 13:45-15:15 CET

📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🔗 Details: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialscienc...
Event description and presenter bio
October 11, 2023 at 1:59 PM