Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Claudia Sassenrath

Biografie

• seit SoSe 2025 Professorin für Allgemeine Psychologie an der RWU
• 2023-2025 außerplanmäßige Professorin an der Universität Ulm
• 2012-2025 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin und Postdoktorandin in der Abteilung Sozialpsychologie der Universität Ulm
• 2022 Forschungsaufenthalt an der Universidad Nacional de Asunción, Paraguay
• 2019 Forschungsaufenthalt an der University of California San Francisco, USA
• 2015 Forschungsaufenthalt an der University of Oregon, USA
• 2008-2012 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin und Doktorandin am Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (Universität Tübingen)
• 2011 Forschungsaufenthalt an der Universiteit Utrecht, Nederland
• 2002-2008 Studium der Diplom-Psychologie an der Universität Würzburg und der Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Publikationen

• Sassenrath, C., Keller, J., Stöckle, D., Kesberg, R., Nielsen, Y. A., & Pfattheicher, S. (2024). I like it because it hurts you: On the association of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 126, 105–127. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000464
• *Fröhlich, E., *Sassenrath, C., Nadji-Ohl, M., Unteroberdörster, M., Rückriegel, S., Von der Brelie, C., Roder, C., Forster, M.-T.; Schommer, S., Löhr, M., Pala, A., Goebel, S., Mielke, D., Gerlach, R., Renovanz, M., Wirtz, C. R., Onken, J., Czabanka, M., Tatagiba, M. S.,...Coburger, J. (2022). Resilience in lower grade glioma patients. Cancers, 14, 5410. *shared first authorship
• Diefenbacher, S., Plotzki, C., Schneider-Brachert W., Ambrosch A., Keller, J., Niesalla, H., Gaube, S., Gastmeier, P., Sassenrath C., & Kramer, T.S. (2022). Differences in observed and self-reported compliance with the 5 moments for hand hygiene as a function of healthcare workers’ empathy. Journal of Hospital Infection, 128, 39-46.
• Sassenrath, C., Diefenbacher, S., Kolbe, V., Niesalla, H., & Keller, J. (2022). The impact of activating an empathic focus during COVID19 on healthcare workers motivation for hand hygiene compliance in moments serving the protection of others: A randomized controlled trial study. Journal of Public Health, 1-5.
• Sassenrath, C., Vorauer, J., & Hodges, S.D. (2021). The link between perspective-taking and prosociality – not as universal as you might think. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 94-99.
• Sassenrath, C., Diefenbacher, S., Pfattheicher, S., & Keller J. (2021). The potential and limitations of empathy in changing health-relevant affect, cognition and behaviour. European Review of Social Psychology, 1-34.
• Sassenrath, C., Wagner, M., Saur, J., & Keller, J. (2021). Inducing empathy affects cardiovascular reactivity reflected in changes in high-frequency heart rate variability. Cognition & Emotion, 35, 393-399.
• Pfattheicher, S., Nockur, L., Böhm, R., Sassenrath, C., & Peterson, M.B. (2020). The emotional path to action: Empathy promotes physical distancing and wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological Science, 31, 1363 –1373.
• Sassenrath, C., Pfattheicher, S., & Hodges, S.D. (2020). Introduction to British Journal of Social Psychology special section on The bright and dark sides of empathy. British Journal of Social Psychology, 59, 714.
• Lui, L. F., Sassenrath, C., & Pfattheicher, S. (2020). When is your pain my gain? The use of perspective taking by everyday sadists. Personality and Individual Differences, 167, Article 110213.
• Diefenbacher, S., Sassenrath, C., Tatzel, J. & Keller, J. (2020). Evaluating healthcare workers’ hand hygiene performance using first-person view video observation in a standardized patient-care scenario. American Journal of Infection Control, 48, 496-502.
• Sassenrath, C. (2019). “Let Me Show You How Nice I Am”: Impression Management as Bias in Empathic Responses. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11, 752–760.
• Pfattheicher, S., Sassenrath, C., & Keller, J. (2019). Compassion magnifies third-party punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117, 124-141.
• Sassenrath, C., Wagner, M., Keller, J., & Sassenberg, K. (2019). It's a challenge! Empathizing with sad but not with angry individuals results in cardiovascular reactivity consistent with a challenge motivational state. Emotion, 19, 982-991.
• Sassenrath, C., Greving, H., & Sassenberg, K. (2018). Are you concerned? Patient testimonials in medical communicaiton affect healthy recipietns' emotions and memory. Frontiers in Communication, 3:18.
• Sassenrath, C., Sassenberg, K., & Greving, H. (2017). It has to be first-hand: The effect of first-person testimonials in medical communication on recipients' emotions and memory. Cogent Medicine, 4(1).
• Sassenrath, C., Pfattheicher, S., & Keller, J. (2017). I might ease your pain, but only if you’re sad: The moderating role of empathized emotion in the empathy-helping association. Motivation and Emotion, 41, 96-106.
• Pfattheicher, S., Sassenrath, C., & Schindler, S. (2016). Feelings for the suffering of others and the environment: Compassion fosters proenvironmental tendencies. Environment and Behavior, 48, 929-945.
• Sassenrath, C., Diefenbacher, S., Siegel, A., & Keller, J. (2016). A person-oriented approach to hand hygiene behavior: Emotional Empathy Fosters Hand Hygiene Practice. Psychology & Health, 31, 205-227.
• Sassenrath, C., Hodges, S. D., & Pfattheicher, S. (2016). It's all about the self: When perspective taking backfires. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 405-410.
• Sassenrath C., Sassenberg K., & Scheepers, D. (2016). The Impact of Regulatory Focus on Challenge and Threat. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 75, 91-95.
• Sassenberg, K., Sassenrath, C., & Fetterman, A. (2015). Threat ≠ prevention, challenge ≠ promotion: The impact of threat, challenge, and regulatory focus on attention to negative stimuli. Cognition and Emotion, 29, 188-195.
• Scholl, A., Sassenrath, C., & Sassenberg (2015). Attracted to power: Challenge / threat and promotion / prevention focus differentially predict the attractiveness of group power. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1-9.
• Olderbak, S., Sassenrath, C., Keller, J., & Wilhelm, O. (2014). An emotion-differentiated perspective on empathy with the emotion specific empathy questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 653.
• Pfattheicher, S., & Sassenrath, C. (2014). A Regulatory Focus Perspective on Eating Behavior: How Prevention and Promotion Focus relates to Emotional, External, and Restrained Eating. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 1314.
• Sassenrath C, Sassenberg K, Ray DG, Scheiter K, Jarodzka H (2014) A Motivational Determinant of Facial Emotion Recognition: Regulatory Focus Affects Recognition of Emotions in Faces. PLoS ONE 9(11): e112383. 3
• Sassenrath, C., Sassenberg, K., & Scholl, A. (2014). From a distance…: The impact of approach and avoidance motivational orientation on perspective taking. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 18-26.
• Sassenrath, C., Sassenberg, K., & Semin, G. R. (2013). Cool, but understanding… Experiencing cooler temperatures promotes perspective taking performance. Acta Psychologica, 143, 245-251.
• Diefenbacher, S., Sassenrath, C., Siegel, A., Grünewald, M., & Keller, J. (2012). Implizite Einstellung zur Händehygiene als relevanter Prädiktor von Händehygieneverhalten. Hygiene & Medizin, 37, 448-455.