Dr. Tobias R. Rebholz

I am an interdisciplinary scholar and open-science enthusiast addressing questions like the one above using methods from statistics, econometrics, machine learning, and behavioral science, including experiments in social cognition, artificial cognition, and human-computer interaction. I am currently a DFG-funded Walter Benjamin Fellow and visiting research scholar in the Management and Organizations Area at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Previously, I was a research associate in the Social Cognition and Decision Sciences group in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. I earned my PhD in 2023 from the DFG-funded Research Training Group Statistical Modeling in Psychology (SMiP)—a transregional collaboration involving the Universities of Mannheim, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Landau, and Tübingen.

Given the name I was dealt, studying what tends “to bias” estimates and behavior feels like nominative determinism—or, at times, an occupational hazard. In other words, my research focuses on investigating biases both in a statistical sense (i.e., improving the estimation of effects and phenomena) as well as from a psychological perspective—specifically, in people’s judgment and decision-making (JDM). A central theme in my current work is quantifying the influence of qualitative information—especially text generated by large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini—on how humans form judgments, make choices, and update their beliefs. More broadly, I develop and apply advanced statistical methods to understand how ecological constraints shape information sampling and utilization. My research has secured over 150,000 EUR in competitive funding and has been published in prestigious outlets, including Psychological Inquiry, Judgment and Decision Making, the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

My teaching spans research seminars in the above-mentioned substantive areas as well as methodological courses on applied machine learning, statistical programming, and experimental data analytics. I serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, as a recommender (associate editor) at Peer Community In: Registered Reports, and as a website editor and associated member of the executive board of the European Association for Decision Making.

Beyond academia, I am trained as a professional chef (see Culinary corner for details). I was in one of the first cohorts of the double-degree program LIZE-Koch (Gesellenbrief + Abitur), which has since become an established program at my former German high school. I worked as a sous-chef at the Restaurant Donauperle for many years and as a restaurant critic for Seezunge, a regional dining guide around Lake Constance in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Although I no longer cook professionally, I continue to volunteer in various culinary roles—for example, cooking for youth and community programs.

On this website, you can find an overview of my main research topics and interests, publications, and full academic CV. If you have any questions or would like to connect, feel free to reach out at tr.rebholz@gmail.com.