Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gaissmaier

Professor

Office D 512
Tel.: +49 7531 88-3024
Fax: +49 7531 88-5288
gaissmaier@uni-konstanz.de

Research interests

  • Judgment and decision making
  • Individual differences in decision making
  • Risk perception and communication
  • Memory-based decision making
  • Medical decision making
  • Ecological rationality
  • Models of heuristics

Professional experience

since 2014 Full Professor of Social Psychology and Decision Sciences (W3), Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany
since 2014 Adjunct Researcher, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
2008–2014 Chief Research Scientist, Harding Center for Risk Literacy, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
2007 Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
2003–2006 Predoctoral Fellow, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

Education

2013 Habilitation in Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Germany
2007 PhD in Psychology, Free University Berlin, Germany
2002 Diploma in Psychology (equivalent to Master’s Degree), Free University Berlin, Germany

Honors and awards

2013 Rising Star, Association for Psychological Science
2012 Fellow, German Young Academy, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities & German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
2009 Dissertation prize (runner up), German Psychological Society, Section: General Psychology
2008 Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievements, Max Planck Society
2006 New Investigator Award, Brunswik Society

Publications

Gaissmaier, W., & Gigerenzer, G. (2012). 9/11, Act II: A fine-grained analysis of regional variations in traffic fatalities in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Psychological Science, 23, 1449–1454.

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Wegwarth, O., Schwartz, L. M., Woloshin, S., Gaissmaier, W., & Gigerenzer, G. (2012). Do physicians understand cancer screening statistics? A national survey of primary care physicians in the United States. Annals of Internal Medicine, 156, 340–349, W-92-W-94.

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Gigerenzer, G., Dieckmann, A., & Gaissmaier, W. (2012). Efficient cognition through limited research. In P. M. Todd, G. Gigerenzer & the ABC Research Group, Ecological rationality: Intelligence in the world (pp. 241–273). New York: Oxford University Press.

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Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2012). Intuition und Führung: Wie gute Entscheidungen entstehen. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann-Stiftung.

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Gaissmaier, W., Wegwarth, O., Skopec, D., Müller, A.-S., Broschinski, S., & Politi, M. C. (2012). Numbers can be worth a thousand pictures: Individual differences in understanding graphical and numerical representations of health-related information. Health Psychology, 31, 286–296.

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Betsch, C., Brewer, N. T., Brocard, P., Davies, P., Gaissmaier, W., Haase, N., Leask, J., Renkewitz, F., Renner, B., Reyna, V. F., Rossmann, C., Sachse, K., Schachinger, A., Siegrist, M., & Stryk, M. (2012). Opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 for vaccination decisions. Vaccine, 30, 3727–3733.

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Trevena, L., Zikmund-Fisher, B., Edwards, A., Gaissmaier, W., Galesic, M., Han, P., King, J., Lawson, M., Linder, S., Lipkus, I., Ozanne, E., Peters, E., Timmermans, D., & Woloshin, S. (2012). Presenting probabilities [Chapter C]. R. Volk & H. Llewellyn-Thomas (Eds.), 2012 Update of the International Patient Decision Aids Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration's Background Document. Cardiff, CF: IPDAS Collaboration

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Arkes, H. R., & Gaissmaier, W. (2012). Psychological research and the prostate-cancer screening controversy. Psychological Science, 23 (6), 547–553.

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Bodemer, N., & Gaissmaier, W. (2012). Risk communication in health. In S. Roeser, R. Hillerbrand, P. Sandin, & M. Peterson (Eds.), Handbook of risk theory: Epistemology, decision theory, ethics, and social implications of risk (Vol. 2, pp. 621–660). Dordrecht: Springer.

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Sherbino, J., Dore, K. L., Wood, T. J., Young, M. E., Gaissmaier, W., Kreuger, S., & Norman, G. R. (2012). The relationship between response time and diagnostic accuracy.  Academic Medicine, 87, 785–791.

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Gaissmaier, W. (2012). Warum Patienten ein Recht auf verständliche Informationen haben. Bauchredner, 108, 85–89.

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Gaissmaier, W., Fific, M., & Rieskamp, J. (2011).  Analyzing response times to understand decision processes.  In M. Schulte-Mecklenbeck, A. Kühberger, & R. Ranyard (Eds.), A handbook of process tracing methods for decision research: A critical review and user's guide (pp. 141–162).  New York: Psychology Press.

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Wegwarth, O., Gaissmaier, W., & Gigerenzer, G. (2011). Deceiving numbers: Survival rates and their impact on doctors’ risk communication. Medical Decision Making, 31, 386–394.

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Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Die Evidenz transparent machen. Das Österreichische Gesundheitswesen, 52, 13–15.

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Gaissmaier, W., & Marewski, J. N. (2011). Forecasting elections with mere recognition from small, lousy samples: A comparison of collective recognition, wisdom of crowds, and representative polls. Judgment and Decision Making, 6, 73–88.

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Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 451–482.

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Hertwig, R., Buchan, H., Davis, D. A., Gaissmaier, W., Härter, M., Kolpatzik, K., Légaré, F., Schmacke, N., & Wormer, H. (2011). How will health care professionals and patients work together in 2020? A manifesto for change. In G. Gigerenzer & J. A. Muir Gray (Eds.), Better doctors, better patients, better decisions: Envisioning health care 2020 (pp. 317–337). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Risk communication: Why we need understandable information. Way Ahead, 15, 10–12.

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Gaissmaier, W., & Gigerenzer, G. (2011). When misinformed patients try to make informed health decisions. In G. Gigerenzer & J. A. Muir Gray (Eds.), Better doctors, better patients, better decisions: Envisioning healthcare 2020 (pp. 29–43). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Marewski, J. N., Gaissmaier, W., Schooler, L. J., Goldstein, D. G., & Gigerenzer, G. (2010). From recognition to decisions: Extending and testing recognition-based models for multialternative inference. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17, 287–309.

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