Humboldt Fellowship for Ranran Li

Early-career personality psychologist awarded Humboldt Research Fellowship  

Ranran Li, postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg/Germany, has been awarded a prestigious grant for postdoctoral work from the internationally operating Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The grant is part of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s (BMFTR) Global Minds Initiative Germany.

Humboldt research fellowships help exceptionally qualified scientists from abroad to pursue research projects of their own choosing in cooperation with scientific hosts at research institutions in Germany. Ranran Li’s host at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg is Jean-Louis van Gelder, head of the Department of Criminology and one of three directors at the institute.

Ranran Li’s work is rooted in personality psychology while extending into broader behavioral sciences, including criminology and behavioral economics. She completed her PhD dissertation entitled Unlocking Personality: How situational strength and situational affordances shape behavioral expression last year at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research employs diverse empirical methods to investigate how personality traits and situational factors jointly shape human behavior.

During her postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute, she aims to integrate psychological perspectives into criminology to better understand the mechanisms underlying criminal and bystander decision-making. To this end, she combines theoretical integration with empirical approaches, including innovative experiments using virtual reality.