Paul is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology and Sport Science at Bangor University. In 2016, Paul received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Bath. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Mathematics Institute at the University of Oxford. He completed his postdoctorial work in Psychology at Bangor University. Broadly, Paul seeks to better understand and improve how individuals make decisions in uncertain, social environments. He is particularly interested in environmental psychology and improving sustainable / cooperative behaviours in complex, social environments.

Paul's research seeks to understand and improve how we make decisions in highly uncertain environments. To do this, his research sits at the intersection of behavioural economics, well-being, and environmental psychology. His recent work has shown that health risk factors (e.g. depression) is associated with difficulty learning to sustain resources and vulnerability to misinformation. Currently, his lab is focusing on evaluating how individual characteristics, environmental factors, and social factors interact to predict sustainable behaviour. 

Taught modules:

Advanced Research Methods (PRP-4014): Paul teaches Advanced Research Methods for a variety of MSc programmes. The module teaches a variety of statistical methods, with the aim to give students confidence when analysing data. Students are able to choose to learn analysis techniques using either SPSS or R (no prior experience of either SPSS or R is required). By the end of this course, students understand how poor usage of analysis techniques led to the replicability crisis. They also understand how to avoid such pitfalls and correctly employ state of the art data analysis techniques in a variety of contexts. 

MSc and BSc research projects:

Paul supervises several MSc and BSc research projects each year. The lab meets regularly to discuss ideas and progress. 

The projects this year will seek to better understand how individuals learn about sustainability over time. Participants will play the RDG with the same partners multiple times. We will measure how each participant’s behaviour changes as they learn more about their partners and the resource. We expect some people to improve their sustainable practices over time, but others will continue to struggle. Therefore, this project will attempt to better understand the individual factors related to how individuals learn to adjust their behaviour over time. We will evaluate whether certain social factors (e.g. the tendency to judge others harshly) and health risk factors (e.g. impulsivity) predict difficulty in learning how to cooperate with others and sustain a resource over time. By learning more about the time it takes for individuals to learn sustainable behaviour, we hope this project can inform future sustainable policy initiatives.

Self-funded (inc. agency-funded) PhD projects: 

Dr. Rauwolf welcomes informal enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in projects related to several aspects of human decision-making and cooperation, including: decision-making biases, decision-making under uncertainty, social decision-making in cooperative contexts, and misinformation in social media / online outlets. If you are interested in discussing opportunities, please contact me at p.rauwolf@bangor.ac.uk