Prof. Dr.
Cornelia Sindermann

My primary research focus is basic research on person-environment interactions in online contexts. I explore how different technologies change how information is created, distributed, filtered, organized, and finally presented to individuals online. Moreover, I am interested in how individuals with different characteristics co-produce and cognitively process this information and, building on that, form and change their political views and behaviors. As such, topics like polarization and radicalization online, but also possibilities for online political participation are of relevance in my research. 

Building on my basic research, I strive to also conduct applied research: Here, I aim to contribute to the development of empirically validated measures to support (vulnerable) individuals in forming informed and – as far as possible – unbiased views in the online world and acting upon them. 

To address these research foci in a rigorous way, I also work on overcoming methodological challenges, like the clear definition, conceptualization, and reliable and valid assessment of variables like ideology, political orientation, and support for democracy. Another challenge is distinguishing such concepts and understanding their nomological networks.

To investigate the topics mentioned, I adopt a multi-methodological, inter- and transdisciplinary research approach. For this, I collaborate with experts from psychology, political, media and communication, as well as computer sciences. Moreover, I combine classical and traditional research designs with digital trace data analysis, like data from social media. Finally, open science and good scientific practice are extremely important to me, and I adhere to the respective standards in all my projects (OSF profile: https://osf.io/xt7pn/#!).

More information on my research can be found here: Research Interests 

Currently, I am Professor for Psychological Assessment, Psychology of Individual Differences, and Psychological Methods at the Charlotte Fresenius University of Psychology, Heidelberg, Germany, as well as Independent Research Group Leader of the team called Computatational Digital Psychology at the University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

My academic CV is available as PDF from: Curriculum Vitae 

Brandenstein, N., Montag, C., & Sindermann, C. (2025). To follow or not to follow: Estimating political opinion from twitter data using a network-based machine learning approach. Social Science Computer Review, 43(4), 792–813. https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393241279418

Hofmann, J., Sindermann, C., & Klinger, R. (2025). Prompt-based personality profiling: Reinforcement learning for relevance filtering. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop for Research on Agent Language Models (REALM 2025) at ACL 2025, 1–16. https://aclanthology.org/2025.realm-1.1.pdf

Obaidi, M., Bergh, R., Ozer, S., & Sindermann, C. (2025). Toward an integrated psychological model of violent extremism, European Review of Social Psychology. 1–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2025.2478735

Schmitt, H.S., Sindermann, C., & Montag, C. (2025).  Toxic disinhibition makes a versatile rulebreaker in cyberspace: Mapping online deviance with exploratory graph analysis and structural equation modeling, Acta Psychologica, 260, 105542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.105542