The article deals with the question under which conditions people change their behavior
through vocational trainings or not. Following the demand of more theory-driven investi-
gations in transfer research (Blume, Ford, Baldwin, & Huang, 2010) we wish to add the per-
spective of social psychology. We therefore illustrate how well-known concepts from social
psychology hold untapped potential to improve transfer research by explaining the under-
lying mechanisms of factors that support (or hinder) the transfer of newly trained behavior
and skills on the job. In choosing social psychological theories that have so far only scarcely
been considered with regard to explaining training transfer we combine them with well
known concepts in transfer research. We give furthermore hints for implications and tools
to foster transfer in practice.