Ralf Schwarzer was born on September 30, 1943, in Mittweida, Germany. He was raised in Kiel, where he completed his secondary education. From 1964 to 1967 he studied at the Teachers' Training College in Kiel. After his teacher exam in 1967, he was employed as a schoolteacher in primary and high schools until 1969, when he joined the faculty of the Teachers' Training College in Kiel as a junior lecturer. He received his diploma (equivalent to M.A.) in Education (1972) and in Psychology (1974) as well as his Ph.D. in Educational Sciences (1973) at Kiel University. He interrupted his professional career in teacher training for a year in 1971 to serve as an educational administrator in the Department of School Innovations of the Ministry of Education.
Dr. Ralf Schwarzer served as an Associate Professor of Educational Sciences at the Teachers' Training College of Schwäbisch-Gmünd from 1974 to 1976, and as a Full Professor of Educational Sciences at the Technical University of Aachen from 1976 to 1982. After having been committed to research in the field of Educational Psychology for several years, Dr. Schwarzer was appointed Full Professor of Psychology at the Freie Universität Berlin (1982), where he continues to be. He received respectable offers for chair positions at the Universities of Munich (1982), Vienna (1983) and Landau (1987), all of which he rejected.
In 1983, he organized an international conference on "Anxiety and Self-Related Cognitions" in Berlin, the proceedings of which have been published. In 1990, he co-organized the annual convention of the Society for Test Anxiety Research in Berlin, and in 1993 the biannual conference of the German Health Psychology Society.
From September 1984 to March 1985 he was on sabbatical leave as a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and from September 1987 to March 1988 at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also spent his sabbatical year from October 1990 to September 1991, supported by a research grant from the Volkswagen Foundation. From April to June 1986, he was appointed as a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Wassenaar, The Netherlands. During the year 1994 he has been a Visiting Professor at the Department of Psychology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and in 1995 and 1996 he has been a Visiting Fellow at York University, Canada.
Ralf Schwarzer has served on many professional committees such as search committees or curriculum committees. In 1986 and in 1992, he was Department Chair of the Institute of Psychology at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is currently Chair of the Department of Organizational and Health Psychology. He has served as a national reviewer for the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1982 to 1983.
Dr. Schwarzer's research interests lie primarily in the areas of
Educational and Health Psychology as well as research methodology. He has conducted many
empirical studies on instructional processes, self-efficacy, anxiety, stress, coping,
health behaviors, and social support. He has published 27 books, 52 journal articles, 68
book chapters, and many research reports. He is Founding Editor of Anxiety, Stress, and
Coping: An International Journal (1988 ff), co-editor of the 7-volume book series Advances
in Anxiety Research, and co-editor of a book series on health psychology (Buchreihe
Gesundheitspsychologie, Hogrefe Verlag) and of the journal Zeitschrift für
Gesundheitspsychologie (1992 ff). He joins the editorial boards of six other journals
(Anxiedad Y Estres, Patient Education and Counseling, Zeitschrift fur
Pädagogische Psychologie, Psychology and Health, Educational Research Journal,
British Journal of Health Psychology, Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie).
His methodological expertise lies in multivariate data analysis, in particular structural equation modeling and meta-analysis. He is a computer software author and has published the Meta-Analysis Software (1989).
Dr. Schwarzer is member of the American Psychological
Association (APA), International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP), International
Council of Psychologists (ICP), European Health Psychology Society
(EHPS), European Association of Personality Psychology (EAPP), German
Psychological Association (DGfP), and he is a former President of the
international Stress and Anxiety Research Society (STAR). In 1995 he became a
Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA, Div. 38). He was
Vice-President of the Health Psychology Division of the German Psychological
Association (1992-1995) and he is currently (1996-98) President of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS). He is also
currently (1997ff) Executive Board Member of the International Society
for Health Psychology Research (ISHPR).
In 1995, he received the John F. Diefenbaker Research Award by the Canada Council.
Last Update: 03.11.99.
Last Update: December 21, 1997.