Research

I have postgraduate training in cognitive, organisational, and consumer psychology. I use experimental research methods to understand the cognitive processes underlying judgment and decision-making, and the application of this knowledge to environmental, financial, managerial, and consumption contexts. My research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and marketing. A complete list of my publications can be found here. My research has also been mentioned in numerous media outlets. A near-complete list of my media mentions can be found here.

Listed below are my major areas of research. Click on the heading to navigate to each area’s dedicated page.

Big Life Decisions

After years of studying how people make relatively small decisions in common situations, I have become fascinated with how people make the biggest decisions in life. A “big” decision is one in which you explicitly chose between two or more options knowing that the outcome would have significant and often long-term consequences for how you …

Nudging

Whenever we make an active decision, we usually consider the options and their attributes in light of what appear to be our stable preferences. What often goes unnoticed is that all options are presented within a context – the “choice architecture” – that ranges from how the options are arranged to what scale the attributes …

Word of Mouth

“Word-of-mouth” refers to the organic and informal spread of information or recommendations about a product, service, brand, or business from one person to another. In the digital age, one of the most common forms of word of mouth is online consumer reviews. Consumers often look at online consumer reviews as a key source of information …

Risky Choice

Many of the decisions we make are risky: We must choose between options that have varying probabilities of different outcomes, including potential gains and losses. We can learn about the risky options from “description” or by “experience”. In decisions from description, we are provided with explicit, verbal, or written descriptions of the potential outcomes and …

Gamification

Gamification refers to the integration of game-like elements and mechanics into non-game activities or processes to enhance engagement, motivation, and participation. Typical mechanics of gamification include rules, goals, points, feedback, badges, leveling up, competition, etc. Gamification can be strategically applied to impact the behaviour of both employees and customers. In this stream of research, I …