Richard Rau

Health and Medical University Potsdam · Psychology

When judging others' personalities, perceivers differ in their general judgment tendencies. These perceiver effects partly reflect a response bias but are also stable and psychologically important individual differences. However, current insights into the basic structure of perceiver effects are ambiguous with previous research pointing to either a...

How positively or negatively people generally view others is key for understanding personality, social behavior, and psychopathology. Previous research has measured generalized other-perceptions by relying on either explicit self-reports or judgments made in group settings. With the current research, we overcome the limitations of these past approa...

Person judgments reflect perceiver effects: differences in how perceivers judge the average person. The factorial structure of such effects is still discussed. We present a large-scale, preregistered replication study using over 1 million person judgments (different groups of 200 perceivers judged 200 targets in one of 20 situations, using 30 perso...

People have characteristic ways of perceiving others’ personalities. When judging others on several traits, some perceivers tend to form globally positive and others tend to form globally negative impressions. These differences, often termed perceiver effects, have mostly been conceptualized as a static construct that taps perceivers’ personal ster...

In this paper, we introduce multi-modal Social Relations Analysis as a powerful tool for studying personality pathology that tackles several important limitations of existing research. By implementing a design in which groups of participants provide repeated ratings as they interact, researchers can gather data on individuals' mutual perceptions, a...

Prosocial behavior often entails the possibility to be exploited by other people. Correspondingly, situations affording prosocial behavior are often characterized by one’s dependence on others’ unknown behavior. In such situations, actors will arguably assess the risk of being taken advantage of by others before making a decision. Thus, prosocial b...

Socially desirable responding can impair the validity of self-report questionnaires, especially in high-stakes situations in which people are incentivized to manage the impression they make on others. To assess the potential impact of impression management, previous studies have used faking-good instructions (i.e., they have encouraged respondents...

Mobile applications offer a wide range of opportunities for psychological data collection, such as increased ecological validity and greater acceptance by participants compared to traditional laboratory studies. However, app-based psychological data also pose data-analytic challenges because of the complexities introduced by missingness and interde...

Prosocial behavior often entails the possibility to be exploited by other people. Correspondingly, situations affording prosocial behavior are often characterized by one’s dependence on others’ unknown behavior. In such situations, actors will arguably assess the risk of being taken advantage of by others before making a decision. Thus, prosocial b...

Feeling accepted by others is a fundamental human motive and an important marker of successful social interactions. This interpersonal perception, known as meta-liking, is especially relevant during adolescence, when peer relationships deepen and expand. However, knowledge is limited regarding meta-liking formation in initial social interactions. T...

Mobile applications offer a wide range of opportunities for psychological data collection, such as increased ecological validity and greater acceptance by participants compared to traditional laboratory studies. However, app-based psychological data also pose data-analytic challenges because of the complexities introduced by missingness and interde...

The experience sampling method (ESM) and comparable assessment approaches are increasingly becoming popular tools for well-being research. In part, they are so popular because they represent more direct approaches for assessing individuals’ experienced well-being during a specified period, whereas one-time, retrospective evaluations of that episode...

The experience sampling method (ESM) and comparable assessment approaches are increasingly becoming popular tools for well-being research. In part, they are so popular because they represent more direct approaches for assessing individuals’ experienced well-being during a specified period, whereas one-time, retrospective evaluations of that episode...

Interpersonal judgments play a central role in human social interactions, influencing decisions ranging from friendships to presidential elections. Despite extensive research on the accuracy of these judgments, an overreliance on broad personality traits and subjective judgments as criteria for accuracy has hindered progress in this area. Further,...

Objective People differ in how positively they tend to see others' traits, but people might also differ in how strongly they apply their perceptual styles. In two studies ( Ns = 355, 303), the current research explores individual differences in how variable people's first impressions are across targets (i.e., within‐person variability), how and why...

People differ in how positively they tend to see others’ traits, but people might also differ in how strongly they apply their perceptual styles (Kenny et al., 2023). In two studies (Ns = 355, 303), the current research explores individual differences in how variable people’s first impressions are across targets (i.e., within-person variability), h...

This meta-analysis examines generalized reciprocity, that is, the relationship between how people perceive others and how they are perceived by others. It tests the hypothesis that generalized reciprocity varies as a function of the content domain under investigation. Generalized reciprocity for attributes with primarily communal content (e.g., fri...

This meta-analysis examines generalized reciprocity, that is, the relationship between how people perceive others and how they are perceived by others. It tests the hypothesis that generalized reciprocity varies as a function of the content domain under investigation. Generalized reciprocity for attributes with primarily communal content (e.g., fri...

In this paper, we introduce multi-modal Social Relations Analysis as a powerful tool for studying personality pathology that tackles several important limitations of existing research. By implementing a design in which groups of participants provide repeated ratings as they interact, researchers can gather data on individuals' mutual perceptions, a...

For decades, a recurring question in person perception research has been whether people’s perceptions of others’ personality traits are related to how they see themselves on these traits. Indeed, evidence for such “assumed similarity” effects has been found repeatedly, at least for certain characteristics. However, recent research suggests that the...

For decades, a recurring question in person perception research has been whether people’s perceptions of others’ personality traits are related to how they see themselves on these traits. Indeed, evidence for such “assumed similarity” effects has been found repeatedly, at least for certain characteristics. However, recent research suggests that the...

In interpersonal perception, perceivers’ tendencies for judging the average target (perceiver effects) are commonly assumed to reflect generalized stereotypes about “the other.” This is empirically supported by findings of consistent rank-orders of perceiver effects across measurement occasions, but previous studies could not rule out important alt...

People have characteristic ways of perceiving others’ personalities. When judging others on several traits, some perceivers tend to form globally positive and others tend to form globally negative impressions. These differences, often termed perceiver effects, have mostly been conceptualized as a static construct that taps perceivers’ personal ster...

In interpersonal perception, perceivers’ tendencies for judging the average target (perceiver effects) are commonly assumed to reflect generalized stereotypes about “the other”. This is empirically supported by findings of consistent rank-orders of perceiver effects across measurement occasions, but previous studies could not rule out important alt...

The ability to mentalize (i.e., to form representations of mental states and processes of oneself and others) is often impaired in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Emotional awareness (EA) represents one aspect of affective mentalizing and can be assessed with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), but findings regarding indiv...

People’s general tendencies to view others as cold-hearted and manipulative (rather than affectionate and trustworthy) may explain defection in social dilemma situations. To capture idiosyncratic tendencies in other-perceptions, we collected mutual judgments in groups of unacquainted individuals in two studies (N1 = 83, N2 = 413) and extracted perc...

Following the fast spread of Covid-19 across Europe and North America in March 2020, many people started stockpiling commodities like toilet paper. Despite the high relevance for public authorities to adequately address stockpiling behavior, empirical studies on the psychological underpinnings of toilet paper stockpiling are still scarce. In this s...

Following the fast spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) across Europe and North America in March 2020, many people started stockpiling commodities like toilet paper. Despite the high relevance for public authorities to adequately address stockpiling behavior, empirical studies on the psychological underpinnings of toilet paper stockpiling are still...

When judging others’ personalities, perceivers differ in their general judgment tendencies. These perceiver effects partly reflect a response bias but are also stable and psychologically important individual differences. However, current insights into the basic structure of perceiver effects are ambiguous with previous research pointing to either a...

Whenever groups form, members readily and intuitively judge each other’s agentic characteristics (e.g., self-confidence or assertiveness). We tested the hypothesis that perceiving others as low in these characteristics triggers agentic interpersonal behavior among perceivers, which benefits their own reputation in terms of agency. We analyzed data...