Klaus Fiedler (born September 7, 1951, in Wetzlar) is a German

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

who teaches as a professor for social psychology at the

Universität Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

Biography

Fiedler studied psychology at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen getting his diploma in 1975. He continued to work there as a research fellow and did his doctorate in 1979. One year later he got a two-year stipend at the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

that was followed by his employment as an assistant professor in Giessen. His

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

took place in 1984. In 1987 he was named Professor for Cognitive and Social-cognitive Psychology. After a professorship at the

Universität Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Academy of Sciences'', ...

that started in 1990, he became a Professor of Social psychology at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg two years later and continues to work there. In 2004/05 Fiedler was a guest professor at New School for Social Research in New York City, USA.Curriculum vitae auf Leopoldina.org
/ref> On January 1, 2022, Fiedler became the first non-American editor-in-chief of Perspectives on Psychological Science (PoPS). He resigned on December 6, 2022, after a vote of no confidence by the Board of the

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...

in the handling of a submission and reviews of a manuscript about racial biases in psychology. When concerns about misconduct were made public in a

preprint In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versio ...

by Steven Othello Roberts, over 1,200 psychologists signed an open letter expressing their concerns about Fiedler's handling of the review process accusing Fiedler of "racism, editorial incompetence, and abuse of power." The decision elicited a variety of responses in support of the decision and in support of Fiedler. Although details about the decision process are not public, the

German Society for Psychology The German Society for Psychology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie) is the German national society of psychologists for education and research in psychology. The society was founded in 1904 as the ''Gesellschaft für Experimentelle Psyc ...

voiced concerns about the lack of an adequate hearing in the process. Fiedler has criticized the actions of APS as "premature" and the social media response as "unwarranted constructive inferences of social-media users" and rejected the accusations of editorial abuse of power.

Research interests

Fiedler attempts to address critical issues in the decision process of modern society where there is often an excess of sometimes contradictory information. In those circumstances, Fiedler tries to determine how the best effective rational decisions can be made. He also investigates how intuitively good decisions can be made when information is limited. Fiedler researches how specific linguistic features may disclose the intentions of a speaker. A concern of Fiedler is the credibility gap of contemporary research manifesting itself in a lack of reproducible results; he is asking for scientific standards to demonstrate reproducibility.

Awards and invited memberships

* 2000, Leibniz Prize of the

(GRF) * 2000, Deutscher Psychologie-Preis of the

* 2002, Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina * 2003, Member of the

Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (German: ''Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften''), established in 1909 in Heidelberg, Germany, is an assembly of scholars and scientists in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Academ ...

* 2009, Koselleck-Preis of the GRF * 2022, of the GRF

Selected works

* Klaus Fiedler, Peter Juslin (Hrsg.): ''Information sampling and adaptive cognition''. Cambridge University Press, New York 2006. * Klaus Fiedler (Hrsg.): ''Social Communication''. Psychology Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-84169-428-3.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiedler, Klaus 1951 births Living people German psychologists Academic staff of Heidelberg University Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners University of Giessen alumni