Erich Kirchler is an Italian-Austrian psychologist and Professor of Economic Psychology at the University of Vienna. His research covers the areas of work, organizational, consumer and economic psychology, in particular tax psychology and money management in private households. He is best known for his research on tax behavior and tax morale and his "slippery slope framework", which has been adopted by a number of tax administrations.
Biography
Kirchler was born in Sand in Taufers in northern Italy. In 1974, he began studying architecture at the Technical University of Vienna and psychology and human anthropology at the University of Vienna. His doctoral dissertation focused on "Changes in concepts through learning processes – A contribution to cognitive dynamics". After his graduation in 1979, he was employed at the University of LinzInstitute of Education and Psychology. Under the supervision of Hermann Brandstätter, he received his habilitation in psychology in 1989 from the University of Linz, Austria. Since 1992, he has served as professor of applied psychology at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, and since 2010 also as a visiting professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Since 1992, Kirchler has taken on various administrative roles, first at the Institute of Psychology and afterwards at the Faculty of Psychology. He has served as Chair of the Department of Applied and Clinical Psychology, Chair of the Institute of Psychology and as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Psychology. He was Vice-Chair and is curreantly Chair of the Department of Applied Psychology: Work, Education, Economy. During his time in Vienna, he has received appointments for full professorships at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University of Cologne in Germany, and has also taught at several international universities as a visiting or guest professor. He has served as a reviewer for Social Sciences at the Austrian Science Fund for many years and has also been a member of the Austrian PR-Ethics Counsel. He has been President of the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology, of the Austrian Society of Psychology and of Division 9 of the International Association of Applied Psychology.
In 2006, Kirchler won the first "Hochschulmanagement-Preis" awarded by the Danube University Krems, together with Christiane Spiel, Alfred Schabmann and Christian Böck.
