I am a postdoctoral researcher in personality and social psychology, with a strong focus on psychological assessment and quantitative methods.

My research examines how people judge others’ personality traits and the effects this has on social interactions. I am currently PI in two larger research projects. In the first project, called Who Knows, my team and I developed a free quiz app to assess the accuracy of people’s first impressions of strangers. In the second project, called Glimpse, we measure positivity differences in people’s first impressions and relate this to their personality traits and interpersonal experiences.

I am dedicated to the Open Science movement, regularly sharing research data, materials, and analysis scripts for my studies, which I also preregister whenever possible. See my CV for details on my biography.

Interests

  • Interpersonal Perception
  • Psychometrics
  • Agency and Communion
  • Social Dynamics
  • Personality Pathology

Education

  • PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Psychology, 2019

    University of Münster

  • M.Sc. in Psychology, 2016

    University of Leipzig

  • B.Sc. in Psychology, 2012

    University of Freiburg

Media

Here’s a selection of my media appearances:

Peer Reviewed Publications

See my CV for a publication list including working papers, talks, etc.

Rau, R.*, Schömann, L. M.*, & Grosz, M. P. (2025). People “fake-good” on personality self-reports more strongly in a job context than in a dating context. Journal of Research in Personality, 116, 104596. *shared first authorship.

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Rau, R., Grosz, M. P., & Back, M. D. (2025). A large-scale, gamified online assessment of first impressions: The Who Knows project. Behavior Research Methods, 57 (3), 83.

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Scharbert, J., Utesch, K., Reiter, T., ter Horst, J., van Zalk, M., Back, M. D., & Rau, R. (2025). If you were happy and you know it, clap your hands! Testing the peak-end rule for retrospective judgments of well-being in everyday life. European Journal of Personality, 39 (1), 55–69.

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Schäpermeier, M. T., Thielmann, I., & Rau, R. (2024). Which measures of beliefs about others’ prosociality predict prosocial behavior in economic games?. Collabra: Psychology, 10(1), Article 121385.

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Kueppers, S., Rau, R., & Scharf, S. (2024). Using Monte Carlo Simulation to forecast the scientific utility of psychological app studies: A tutorial. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1–15.

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Bleckmann, E., Rau, R., Carlson, E. N., & Wagner, J. (2024). I think you might like me: Emergence and change of meta-liking in initial social interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (accepted for publication).

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Carlson, E. N., Elsaadawy, N., Pringle, V., & Rau, R. (2024). Individual differences in dissimilation: Do some people make more distinctions among targets’ personalities than others?. Journal of Personality, 92(5), 1341–1355.

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Pringle, V., Carlson, E. N., & Rau, R. (2023). Self-knowledge of perceiver effects: Do people know how positively they tend to view targets relative to other people?. Journal of Research in Personality, 106, 104413.

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Schauf, T., Dufner, M., Nestler, S., & Rau, R. (2023). Do agency and communion explain the relationship between perceiver and target effects in interpersonal perception? A meta-analysis on generalized reciprocity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(10), 1479–1494.

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Thielmann, I.*, Rau, R.*, & Locke, K. D. (2023). Trait-specificity versus global positivity: A critical test of alternative sources of assumed similarity in personality judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(4), 828–847. *shared first authorship.

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Rau, R., Zimmermann, J., & Back, M. D. (2023). Applying multi-modal Social Relations Analyses in personality pathology research. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 14(1), 73–82.

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Rau, R., Carlson, E. N., Dufner, M., Geukes, K., Kraft, L., Krause, S., Nikoleizig, L., Nestler, S., & Back, M. D. (2022). Positivity in peer perceptions over time: Personality explains variation at zero-acquaintance, popularity explains differential change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(2), 423–443.

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Rau, R., Lawless DesJardins, N. M., Niemeyer, L. M., Back, M. D., Srivastava, S., & Nestler, S. (2022). Perceiver effects in first impressions reflect generalized stereotypes: Evidence of consistency across time, groups, and contexts. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(7), 1138–1150.

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Heynicke, M., Rau, R., Leising, D., Wessels, N., & Wiedenroth, A. (2022). Perceiver effects in person perception reflect acquiescence, positivity, and trait-specific content: Evidence from a large-scale replication study. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(4), 839–848.

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Rau, R., Carlson, E. N., Back, M. D., Barranti, M., Gebauer, J. E., Human, L. J., Leising, D., & Nestler, S. (2021). What is the structure of perceiver effects? On the importance of global positivity and trait-specificity across personality domains and judgment contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(3), 745–764.

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Rau, R., Nestler, W., Dufner, M., & Nestler, S. (2021). Seeing the best or worst in others: A measure of generalized other-perceptions. Assessment, 28(8), 1897–1914.

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Maaßen, E., Büttner, M., Bröcker, A.-L., Stuke, F., Bayer, S., Hadzibegovic, J., Just, S. A., Bertram, G., Rau, R., Haebler, D. von, Lempa, G., & Montag, C. (2021). Measuring emotional awareness in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 0, 5225.

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Garbe, L.*, Rau, R.*, & Toppe, T.* (2020). Influence of perceived threat of Covid-19 and HEXACO personality traits on toilet paper stockpiling. PloS ONE, 15(6). *shared first authorship.

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Rau, R., Thielmann, I., Breil, S. M., Geukes, K., Krause, S., Nikoleizig, L., Back, M. D., & Nestler, S. (2019). Do perceiver effects in interpersonal perception predict cooperation in social dilemmas?. Collabra: Psychology, 6(1), 35.

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Rau, R., Nestler, S., Geukes, K., Back, M. D., & Dufner, M. (2019). Can other-derogation be beneficial? Seeing others as low in agency can lead to an agentic reputation in newly formed face-to-face groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(1), 201–227.

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Teaching

Once I began my Ph.D., I regularly conducted seminars and workshops on implementing statistical procedures using SPSS and R at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels. Furthermore, I held lectures on Psychological Diagnostics at the Master’s level and led seminars on targeted diagnostic interviewing, personality and performance measurement, and personality and interpersonal perception at zero-acquaintance at the University of Münster. At HMU, my teaching focus also lies in the field of Social Psychology and Psychological Assessment.

This summer term (2025) I teach the following courses:

  • Lecture Introduction to Social Psychology (undergraduate course)
  • Seminar Key Phenomena in Social Psychology (undergraduate course)
  • Lecture Psychological Assessment (undergraduate course)
  • Seminar Psychological Interviewing (undergraduate course)

See my CV for a detailed overview of courses I have taught.

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