Ralph Hertwig
Director of the Research Center for Adaptive Rationality and
Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Office of the Director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality
Maren Kutscha, Katja Münz, Petra Siemers-Hering
sekhertwig@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
Phone: +49 30 82406-202
Office of the Managing Director
Katrin Götz
sekgd@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
Phone: +49 30 82406-210
Memberships and Service (Selection)
- Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Section "Psychology and Cognitive Sciences"
- Member, German National Academy of Science and Engineering acatech
- Member, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
- Fellow, Association for Psychological Science (APS)
- Member, Wilhelm-Wundt-Gesellschaft
- Faculty, International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course (LIFE)
- Fellow, Max Planck School of Cognition
- Faculty, International Max Planck Research School for Computational Methods in Psychiatry and Ageing Research (COMP2PSYCH)
Research interests
- Models of bounded and ecological rationality
- Decisions from experience
- The psychology of risk
- Lifespan development of decision making
- Evidence-based public policy (Boosting)
Short CV
2017 | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize |
since 2016 | Honorary professor, Freie Universität Berlin |
since 2013 | Honorary Professor, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
since 2012 | Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin |
2005–2012 | Full Professor for Cognitive and Decision Sciences at the Department of Psychology, University of Basel |
2003 | Habilitation in Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin |
1995 | Ph. D. (Dr. rer soc.) in Psychology, Universität Konstanz |
Selection of recent publications
(the complete list of publications can be found here)
- Huang, Y., Luan, S., Wu, B., Li, Y., Wu, J., Chen, W., & Hertwig, R. (2024). Impulsivity is a stable, measurable, and predictive psychological trait. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(24), Article e2321758121.
- Kozyreva, A., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Herzog, S. M., Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Hertwig, R., Basol, M., Berinsky, A. J., Betsch, C., Cook, J., Fazio, L. K., Geers, M., Guess, A. M., Maertens, R., Panizza, F., Pennycook, G., Rand, D. J., Rathje, S., Reifler, J., Roozenbeek, J., Schmid, P., Smith, M., Swire-Thompson, B., Szewach, P., van der Linden, S., & Wineburg, S. (2024). Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation. Nature Human Behaviour. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01881-0
- Lejarraga, T., Schnitzlein, D. D., Dahmann, S. C., & Hertwig, R. (2024). Birth-order effects on risk taking are limited to the family environment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1531(1), 60–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.15085
- Li, Y., Breithaupt, F., Hills, T., Lin, Z., Chen, Y., Siew, C. S. W., & Hertwig, R. (2024). How cognitive selection affects language change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(1), Article e2220898120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2220898120
- Ruggeri, K., Vanderslott, S., Yamada, Y., Argyris, Y. A., Većkalov, B., Boggio, P. S., Fallah, M. P., Stock, F., & Hertwig, R. (2024). Behavioural interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation on social media. BMJ, 384, Article e076542. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-076542
- Ciranka, S., & Hertwig, R. (2023). Environmental statistics and experience shape risk-taking across adolescence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(12), 1123–1134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2023.08.020
- Haux, L. M., Engelmann, J. M., Arslan, R. C., Hertwig, R., & Herrmann, E. (2023). Chimpanzee and human risk preferences show key similarities. Psychological Science, 34(3), 358–369.
- Kozyreva, A., Herzog, S. M., Lewandowsky, S., Hertwig, R., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Leiser, M., & Reifler, J. (2023). Resolving content moderation dilemmas between free speech and harmful misinformation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(7), Article e2210666120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2210666120
- Kozyreva, A., Wineburg, S., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2023). Critical ignoring as a core competence for digital citizens. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(1), 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221121570
- Lorenz-Spreen, P., Oswald, L., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2023). A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy. Nature Human Behaviour, 7, 74-101. Freier Zugang
- Spiliopoulos, L., & Hertwig, R. (2023). Variance, skewness and multiple outcomes in described and experienced prospects: Can one descriptive model capture it all? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(4), 1188–1222. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001323