Ingo Zettler

What do you research?

Most of my research centers around the structure and assessment of individual differences (e.g., cognitive abilities, personality characteristics, socio-political attitudes and beliefs), as well as their role for people’s behavior. I am particularly interested in individual differences related to anti- and prosocial behavior (e.g., aversive (‘dark’) personality characteristics), to behavior in applied contexts (e.g., dishonesty, job performance, proenvironmental behavior), and to so-called life outcomes (e.g., happiness, health, salary). I often consider the interplay between both person and environmental/social factors in shaping behavior.

Why is it so important?

Individual differences are omnipresent in all domains of thinking, feeling, and behaving. I thus find it important to know how we can think about, conceptualize, and speak about individual differences, as well as assess them soundly. I find this particularly relevant because many individuals hold some subjective ideas about their own and others’ personality, which sometimes, but not always, align with current scientific knowledge. We also know that most behavior is affected by several aspects, out of which individual differences are an important part, so it seems good to know which individual differences are relevant for which criteria in combination with which environmental/social factors, and why. Content wise, I personally believe that decreasing anti- and increasing prosocial behavior is a good thing, so increasing knowledge that helps achieving this might be considered important.

A project you are proud of?

While I do hope that my most important contributions are still lying ahead of me, we have worked quite a bit on the common core of aversive personality characteristics (e.g., Egoism, Narcissism, Sadism), on dis/honesty both as a personality characteristic and behavior shown in specific situations, as well as on combining person and situation factors. I am generally just happy that I can do research on topics I care about and to see early career researchers developing.

Opdateret oktober 2024

In previous policy fellowships, Ingo has worked with Signe Korsgaard, Head of the Department for Projects & Analysis, Børns Vilkår (Alumner - Policy Fellowship).