Publications

Rau, R., Kueppers, S., Back, M. D., & Grosz, M. P. (2026). Item features affect how well people can predict self-reported personality traces of strangers. European Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070261467481

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Remmers, C., Anoschin, A., Zimmermann, J., Grosz, M. P., Back, M. D., & Rau, R. (2026). Intuitive judgments of strangers are more popular but not more accurate than deliberate ones. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506261452705

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Rau, R.*, Hönig, L.*, Back, M. D., & Grosz, M. P. (2026). Receiving applause "from the right": Punishing freeriding is socially rewarded by those high in right-wing authoritarianism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261445479 * equal contribution

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Rau, R., Weiner, L., & Vogel, L. (2026). Perceiver positivity differences originate in early-stage impression formation: Evidence from a recognition task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672261424543

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Schoedel, R., Altgassen, E., Back, M. D., Buss, M., Bühner, M., Etzel, J. M., Goecke, B., Grinschgl, S., Grunenberg, E., Hätscher, O., Hommel, B. E., Kordsmeyer, T. L., Körner, S., Kuper, N., Mata, R., Mussel, P., Petrasch, A., Rammstedt, B., Rau, R., …Ziegler, M. (2026). Künstliche Intelligenz und Individuelle Unterschiede. Eine Perspektive der Fachgruppe Differentielle Psychologie, Persönlichkeitspsychologie und Psychologische Diagnostik. Psychologische Rundschau, 77(3), 149–155. https://doi.org/10.1026/0033-3042/a000766 [english version retrievable from https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/j8szh_v2]

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Bleckmann, E., Rau, R., Lüdtke, O., Krause, S., & Wagner, J. (2026). How group personality composition affects person and group outcomes: An integrative analysis using the Group Actor–Partner Interdependence Model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 130(6), 1208–1228. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000588

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Dufner, M.*, Grapsas, S.*, & Rau, R. (2026). Behavioral and valuation contingency: Why the same dispositions lead to different social evaluations across contexts. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 17(5), 579–592. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506251356006 * equal contribution

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Thielmann, I., Back, M. D., Bleidorn, W., Bukowski, H., Carlson, E. N., Dufner, M., Hofer, G., Hofmann, W., Hopwood, C. J., Human, L. J., Jordan, C. H., Krueger, J. I., Langdon, J., Rau, R., Smillie, L. D., Strohminger, N., Sun, J., Vazire, S., Burghardt, M., …Seidl, A. (2026). A consensus statement on self-knowledge conceptualization, measurement, outcomes, and changeability. Nature Reviews Psychology, 5, 338–351. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-026-00554-1

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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, Article 104596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2025.104596 * equal contribution

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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), Article 83. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-025-02601-w

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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. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070241235969

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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. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.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, 59(4), 879–893. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2024.2335411

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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. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12893

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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, 127(4), 901–919. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000496

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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, Article 104413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2023.104413

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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. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221107205

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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. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000420 * equal contribution

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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. https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000589

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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. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000407

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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. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211066710

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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. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211039101

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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. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000278

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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. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191120905015

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Maaßen, E., Büttner, M., Bröcker, A.-L., Stuke, F., Bayer, S., Hadzibegovic, J., Just, S. A., Bertram, G., Rau, R., von Haebler, D., Lempa, G., & Montag, C. (2021). Measuring emotional awareness in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 725787. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725787

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Rau, R., Thielmann, I., Breil, S. M., Geukes, K., Krause, S., Nikoleizig, L., Back, M. D., & Nestler, S. (2020). Do perceiver effects in interpersonal perception predict cooperation in social dilemmas? Collabra: Psychology, 6(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.332

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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), Article e0234232. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234232 * equal contribution

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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. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000250

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Rau, R., name, & name (2000). Title goes here. Journal Name, 117(1), 201–227. https://...

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