Dr. Kevin Tiede

Climate change requires individuals and policymakers to make complex decisions. I study how people make such decisions—and how communication can support informed decision making.

Hintergrund

Kevin Tiede is the Scientific Managing Director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour and a researcher at the Chair of Health Communication. After completing a PhD at the University of Konstanz, Kevin worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

As a psychologist, Kevin studies how people make decisions in different contexts, including climate change and health. A particular focus lies on how information about climate policies and risks can be communicated in ways that support informed decision making.

Research interests: Decision making under risk and uncertainty, climate policy acceptance and communication, risk communication

Curriculum Vitae

Academic career     

• 2017 – 2022          PhD in Psychology, Graduate School of Decision Sciences, University of Konstanz
• 2014 – 2017          MSc in Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau
• 2011 – 2014          BSc in Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau

Employment

• since 2026            Scientific Managing Director, Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour, University of Erfurt
• since 2024            Research Associate, Chair of Health Communication, University of Erfurt
• 2021 – 2024          Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin
• 2019 – 2020          Visiting Researcher, Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin
• 2019 – 2021          PhD Scholarship, German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)
• 2017 – 2018          Doctoral Researcher, Social Psychology and Decision Sciences, University of Konstanz
• 2016 – 2017          Visiting Scholar, Cognitive and Affective Influences in Decision Making Lab, Ohio State University, USA

Publications

• Tiede, K. E., Maur, K., & Betsch, C. (2026). Rethinking pluralistic ignorance: People systematically under- and overestimate public engagement in climate action [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ywamz_v1
• Tiede, K. E., Hertwig, R., Mata, R., & Wulff, D. U. (2026). Communicating risks more comprehensively using simulated experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 30(3), 200–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.12.004
• Betsch, C., Geiger, M., Lehrer, L., Sprengholz, P., Temme, H., Tiede, K. E., & Jenny, M. A. (2025). Psychological foundations of climate action [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/enkwy_v2
• Thoma, A. I., Bolenz, F., Tiede, K. E., Yang, Y., Palminteri, S., Hertwig, R., & Wulff, D. U. (2025). Mapping the landscape of behavioral reinforcement learning research [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6c2va_v1
• Tiede, K. E., Temme, H., Lehrer, L., & Betsch, C. (2025). Enhancing perceived effectiveness can increase climate policy acceptance. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 106, Article 102725. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102725
• Tiede, K. E., Gaissmaier, W., Pachur, T. (2025). Is there a description–experience gap in choices between a described and an experienced option? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 51(4), 552–574. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001417
• Tiede, K. E. (2025). Learning from the past to guide the future of research on risk communication. MDM Policy & Practice, 10(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1177/23814683251314517
• Tiede, K. E., & Gaissmaier, W. (2023). How do people process different representations of statistical information? Insights about cognitive effort, representational inconsistencies, and individual differences. Medical Decision Making, 43, 803–820. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X231202505
• Gaissmaier, W., Tiede, K. E., & Garcia-Retamero, R. (2023). The lure of beauty: People select representations of statistical information based on attractiveness, not comprehensibility. Medical Decision Making, 43, 774–788. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X231201579
• Bago, B., Kovacs, M., Protzko, J., Nagy, T., Kekecs, Z., Pal_, B., Adamkovic, M., Adamus, S., Adoric, V. C., …, Tiede, K. E., …, & Aczel, B. (2022). Situational factors shape moral judgments in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern, and Western countries in a culturally diverse sample. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 880–895. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01319-5
• Tiede, K. E., Henninger, F., & Kieslich, P. J. (2022). Revisiting the Open Sampling format: Improving risky choices through a novel graphical representation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29, 648–659. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-02018-4
• Tiede, K. E., Bjälkebring, P., & Peters, E. (2022). Numeracy, numeric attention, and number use in judgment and choice. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 35, Article e2264. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2264
• Tiede, K. E.*, Schultheis, S. K.*, & Meyer, B. (2021). Subgroup splits in diverse work teams: Subgroup perceptions but not demographic faultlines affect team identification and emotional exhaustion. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 595720. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.595720 *shared first authorship
• Tiede, K. E., Ripke, F., Degen, N., & Gaissmaier, W. (2020). When does the incremental risk format aid informed medical decisions? The role of learning, feedback, and number of treatment options. Medical Decision Making, 40, 212–221. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X20904357
• Tiede, K. E., & Appel, M. (2020). Reviews, expectations, and the experience of stories. Media Psychology, 23, 365–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2019.1602055
• Peters, E., Fennema, M. G., & Tiede, K. E. (2019). The loss-bet paradox: Actuaries, accountants, and other numerate people rate numerically inferior gambles as superior. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 32, 15–29. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2085