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Hi, I am Ranran Li

An Ultimate Truth-Seeker.

Support Good Science. Always on the way.

About Me

PostDoc @Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Freiburg.

PhD @Vrije University Amsterdam. With the belief that 'Serious inquiry into human nature is not a luxury', I am inspecting how personality traits and psychological situational factors jointly shape:

  • human cognition, emotions, and behavior (e.g., prosociality, morality, delinquency).

(Personality-Social) Psychology is 'Forever Moonlight'. I also have interdisciplinary interests, including computational social science, behavioral economics, philosophy of science/meta-science, and criminology.

Updates

18.06.2026 📝 “The future already exists. We are walking toward it to see it unfold.”
18.06.2026 🎉 New paper accepted at Journal of Experimental Social Psychology!
“People feel but don’t tell: Fortunes-of-others' emotions (FOEs)”
15.05.2026 🎉 New paper accepted at Zeitschrift für Psychologie!
“Entangled pathways to delinquency” ( preprint )
20.12.2025 📝 “The future shall be bright.”
11.12.2025 🎉 New paper online “Trait activation in daily life” ( doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2025.104689 )
11.11.2025 🎉 Ranran was awarded the Humboldt Postdoc Fellowship.
27.10.2025 🎓 Ranran defended her PhD!
A journey of 4.5 yrs, dissertation submitted on Valentine’s Day, signaling her love for science.

Research

Below I organize my past and ongoing research into the following:

Personality Processes: Person–situation interactions
Theoretical Integration: Personality in Context
Prosociality & Morality
Methodology: The Promises of Virtual Reality
Meta-Science

Personality Processes: Person–situation interactions

Conceptual
Li, R., & Wilt, J. A. (2025). Situated selves: A cyclical model of personality expression in context. Current Opinion in Psychology, 102104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102104
Empirical Meta-analysis;
Economic games
Li, R., Balliet, D., Thielmann, I., & De Vries, R. E. (2024). Revisiting situational strength: Do strong situations restrict variance in behaviors? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000475
JPSP
Empirical Diary study
Li, R., Thielmann, I., Balliet, D., & De Vries, R. E. (2025). Trait activation in daily life: Comparing two perspectives on person–situation interactions. Journal of Research in Personality. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2025.104689
Trait activation figure
Empirical Cheating experiment
Li, R., Thielmann, I., Balliet, D., & De Vries, R. (R&R submitted). When dishonesty pays off: Incentives promote trait activation of Honesty-Humility.
Empirical Scale development
Li, R., Thielmann, I., Balliet, D., & De Vries, R. E. (2023). Development of the Generic Situational Strength (GSS) scale: Measuring situational strength across contexts. In L. R. Ford & T. A. Scandura (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Survey Development and Application. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529617757.n35
Journal club
Li, R. (2022). Revisiting person–situation interactionism. Nature Reviews Psychology (journal club). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00139-8
Empirical Meta-analysis
Li, R., Van Gelder, J.-L., & De Vries, R. E. Who goes where and why? A meta-analytic review of personality-driven situation selection. Manuscript in prep.

Much content is covered in my PhD dissertation, see here:

PhD Dissertation Cover

Li, R. (2025). Unlocking Personality: How Situational Strength and Situational Affordances Shape Behavioral Expression. [PhD-Thesis – Research and graduation internal, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]. https://doi.org/10.5463/thesis.1256

Theoretical Integration: Personality in Context

Conceptual/ Mini-Review personality-situation interactions
Li, R., & Wilt, J. A. (2025). Situated selves: A cyclical model of personality expression in context. Current Opinion in Psychology, 102104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102104
SituatedSelves
Conceptual/ Roadmap cultural x personality psychology
Li, R., & Zettler, I. (2025). Entangled Minds: A roadmap for bridging cultural and personality psychology research. https://doi.org/10.1177/27000710251388772
Culture figure
Conceptual short-term mindsets
Van Gelder, J.-L., Li, R., Wiechert, S., & Frankenhuis, W. E. (2025). Short-term mindsets: Beyond traits and self-regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 102112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102112
STMT
Conceptual/ Theoretical Personality-Delinquency
Li, R., De Vries, R. E., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (in press). Entangled pathways to delinquency: An Integrative Conceptual Framework of Personality, Situations, and Macro-Structures. Zeitschrift für Psychologie.
Figure_P-D

Prosociality & Morality

Empirical Vignettes;
retrospective recall survey;
interactive study
Ye, Z., Long, F., Feng, R., Van Dijk, W., & Li, R. (2026). People feel but don’t tell: Dispositional honesty and emotional responses to others’ (mis)fortunes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 126, 104966. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104966
Empirical Cheating experiment
Li, R., Thielmann, I., Balliet, D., & De Vries, R. (R&R submitted). When dishonesty pays off: Incentives foster trait activation of Honesty-Humility.
Empirical Virtual Reality experiment
Li, R., De Vries, R. E., Barnum, T., Herman, S., Tisdall, L., & Van Gelder, J.-L. A Trait–State Model of reactive guardianship: Psychological pathways to bystander intervention. Manuscript in prep.
bystander
Conceptual
He, Y., & Li, R. (submitted). Helping in the dark: Toward a science of prosociality under risk.
He, Y., & Li, R. (submitted). Prosociality under risk: A conceptual synthesis and roadmap for future research.

Methodology: The Promises of Virtual Reality

Conceptual
Li, R., Knabe, M., Derakhshan, S., Arui, A.-K., & Van Gelder, J.-L. (submitted). Beyond immersion and presence: Rethinking validity in Virtual Reality criminology.

Meta-Science

Reflective essay
Li, R. (submitted). The Soul of Science: On integrity in an age of pragmatic academia.

Blogs

2025
The Soul of Science: On integrity in an age of pragmatic academia
As academia celebrates excellence via metrics, curiosity dims into deliverables, authorship inflates, and even Open Science and moral discourse risk becoming performative. In a system that rewards appearances, virtue turns strategic, and integrity becomes a fragile luxury. Read more: TBA
2024
How Situational Settings Influence Behavior: New Insights from Behavioral Research
We utilized well-established economic game paradigms to address a debated proposition in personality and social psychology. The implications of this research extend beyond academic circles, offering valuable insights to scholars studying human behavior and policy-makers aiming to nudge desired behaviors. Read more
2022
Recent Development in Personality Assessment
Explore the latest advancements in personality assessment, including new methodologies and their implications for research and practice. Read more
2021
Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) in Social Science Research
An examination of questionable research practices in social science, their consequences, and strategies for promoting research integrity. Read more in Chinese | Read more in English
2019
The Limitations of p-value and Bayesian Hypothesis Testing
An in-depth discussion on the limitations of p-value in hypothesis testing and the advantages of Bayesian approaches in statistical analysis. Read more in Chinese | Read more in English
2020
Big Data Analytics in Psychology and Management Research
Discover how big data analytics is transforming research in psychology and management, offering new insights and enhancing decision-making processes. Read more in Chinese | Read more in English
2020
AOM (Academy of Management) Conference Reflections
A reflection on the insights and experiences from the AOM 2020 Conference, highlighting key takeaways and their significance for management professionals. Read more in Chinese | Read more in English

Visualize

All analytical scripts, supplementary materials are available here:

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Contact

r.li@csl.mpg.de

Department of Criminology

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law

Günterstalstraße 73
79100 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany