K. J. (Kai) Jonas was born in 1972 and raised in the Lower Bavarian countryside. He graduated 1998 from the University of Göttingen, Germany and received his doctorate degree from the same institution in 2002. He moved to the University of Jena, Germany, where he worked first as a post-doc in the Junior Research Group "Motivational Determinants of Social Discrimination" and and later as an assistant professor in the Social Psychology Department.

In the 2007 Die Zeit/academics.de competition, he was mentioned as one of the Top 5 Young German Researchers.
He received the 2008 Award for Distinguished Teaching of Social Psychology by the Amsterdam Psychology Institute of the UvA.

In social cognition, I am doing research on automatic behavior, more specifically, how social categories automatically activate responses directed towards them. In the context of social discrimination research this approach is fruitful, since it goes beyond affective or evaluative measures by directly explaining behavior targeted at outgroups (i.e., prejudice and outgroup derogation). In addition, I apply an intergroup perspective on mimicry behavior.
Furthermore, I am developing a self-regulation approach to bystander behavior analyzing the interplay of individual characteristics (goals, automatic activation of attributes and behavior) and situational appraisal.
Focusing on a different aspect of social identity/group processes, I am working on the analysis of discrimination on the basis of chronic group memberships from within an Ingroup Projection Model perspective.

Moreover, in applied social psychology, I have been engaged in the development, evaluation, and training of intervention programs, e.g. for the delivery of death messages, or Zivilcourage-Trainings, based on the concept of morally courageous behavior of bystanders.
Furthermore, I am doing research on heritage processes and grieving.

In the past, I have worked on mental representation of brands and on computer-mediated communication.

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