DR IRIS SCHNEIDER
Professor for Social and Organisational Psychology · University of Cologne
Life is complicated: few topics are black and white, values compete, and people are not all good or all bad. These mixed reactions can cause ambivalence. I study when this ambivalence is a hindrance, when it can be harnessed, and what makes the difference.
With my team at the University of Cologne, I look at how ambivalence shapes decisions and how it affects trust between people, and at what it does in organisations, from the relationship between leaders and employees to well-being at work. Before academia I worked for several years in industry in the Netherlands, in assessment and recruitment consulting and in training and quality assurance at an internet provider. My experience outside academia as a trainer and consultant shapes my research and teaching.
If you are new to the topic, the short version is in this Psyche article and a longer conversation is in the Opinion Science podcast. The academic work is on the Research page, and talks and workshops for organisations are under Speaking.
I teach Global Leadership at Cologne and in CEMS, the international business school network, and I supervise doctoral and master's students working on ambivalence, trust and leadership.
I am a first-generation academic and care a lot about mentoring, both through formal programmes such as the First Generation Promotion Mentoring Program and informally. I keep a living document with tips for students who are thinking about a PhD, mostly based on the German system. If that is you, feel free to get in touch.
Email me at iris.schneider@wiso.uni-koeln.de. My full academic CV is here.