Caroline Heydenbluth

Since May 2021, Caroline Heydenbluth is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social- and Political Psychology (SPP) at the Leuphana University in Germany. She is conducting research in the Negotiation Research Group (NRG) at the Institute of Psychology (IP), investigating joint decision-making processes in business, political, and environmental negotiations.

Coming from the study of ethics in negotiations (i.e., how and through which psychological processes unethical behavior in negotiations can be reduced), she shifted her research focus to joint decision-making processes in transformation negotiations. In her dissertation project, Caroline is especially interested in social-dilemma negotiations - negotiations in which the short-term self interest of the negotiating parties is at odds with the longer-term collective interest. Each and everyone of us is confronted with challenging decision-making situations in our everyday lives, e.g., when facing the decision of wether to fly on vacation (short-term self-interest) or to stay home and save greenhouse gas emissions instead (longer-term collective interest). Moreover, social-dilemma negotiations are of great relevance in the context of contribution to and distribution of (scarce) collective resources. Guided by the question of how to achieve a more sustainable society and use of resources, Caroline is interested in exploring the psychological processes underlying joint decision-making in transformation negotiations. She is committed to apply her research to real-world scenarios in order to derive practical implications from it and to contribute to a more sustainable and future-oriented society.