Arizona Think Tank for Behavioral Decision Making
The intersection of research on human decision making and public policy.
The Arizona Think Tank for Behavioral Decision Making is a center for scholars dedicated to investigating and uncovering the mechanisms and consequences of human decision making.
The goal: to bring together researchers interested in diverse facets of human judgment and decision making—including affective, cognitive and social psychology, behavioral economics, marketing, management and organizational behavior, behavioral finance and management information systems.
About Behavioral Decision Making
Behavioral decision making is the study of affective, cognitive and social processes which humans employ to identify and choose alternatives. These processes are guided by the values, beliefs and preferences of the decision maker, produce a final choice and sway behavior. Today, the study of these processes is increasingly prevalent in a variety of disciplines, including psychology, behavioral economics, marketing, management and organizational behavior, behavioral finance and management information systems. Behavioral decision making captures and unites the diversity of contexts used to study human judgment and choice. In addition, behavioral decision making research has the potential to offer far-reaching implications, ranging from a better understanding of consumer well-being via a more efficient management of organizations and systems to an increased grasp of complex mechanisms at play at the societal level.
Our People
Faculty affiliates of the Arizona Think Tank for Behavioral Decision Making conduct and disseminate in-depth research, aiming to solve important decision-making problems facing both individuals and society in Arizona, the United States and around the globe.
Behavioral Decision Making Events
Past Talks
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Craig R. Fox
Harold Williams Professor of Management
Area Chair, Behavioral Decision Making
Professor of Psychology and Medicine
UCLA Anderson School -
Norbert Schwarz
Provost Professor, Department of Psychology & Marshall School of Business
Co-director, USC Dornsife Mind & Society Center
University of Southern California
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Watch Eric Johnson's talk on Decision making The Elements of Hope: why the way we decide matters |
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Watch Alex Imas' talk on Dynamic Inconsistency in risky choice |
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Watch Alec Smith's talk on Arousal and attention in risky choice |
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Watch Ravi Dhar's talk on Great Expectations Make the Pain Last Longer |
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Watch Gergana Nenkov on Financial Decisions in Romantic Couples |
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Watch Thomas Kramer on Product Sharing Lowers Product Efficacy Expectations |
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WATCH URS FISCHBACHER ON INCENTIVES FOR CONFORMITY AND ANTICONFORMITY |
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WATCH Carey Morewedge on the Reluctance to Use Medical AI |
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WATCH HANNAH BIRNBAUM ON BREAKING BARRIERS TO ALLYSHIP |
Think Tank Faculty Research
From Think Tank faculty Julian Romero, Department of Economics:
What effect do pre-election polls have on election outcomes? Rational voter models suggest that polls lead to worse (more random) outcomes. Using an economics experiment, we find evidence of the bandwagon effect (voters favoring the poll-leader vote more) and, therefore, pre-election polls actually lead to better outcomes. Read more here.
From Think Tank faculty Anastasiya Pocheptsova Ghosh, Department of Marketing:
The use of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payment methods has exploded in the marketplace. While businesses are eager to adopt them, consumers associate P2P payment methods more with social transactions than with business transactions. As a result, they rate service providers as warm, and correspondingly less competent and are less likely to transact. Read more here.
From Think Tank faculty Tamar Kugler, Department of Management and Organizations:
Does disgust reduce trust? We use virtual reality and face-reading technology to study the relationship between disgust and trust. Participants playing a repeated Trust Game exhibit a negative correlation between trust and disgust measured from facial expressions and inducing trust externally using virtual reality reduces trust behavior and intentions. Read more here.
From Think Tank faculty Joe Valacich, Department of Management Information Systems:
How is your customer feeling about your website? Emotion can influence important customer behaviors, including purchasing decisions, technology use and loyalty. The ability to assess customers’ emotions during live system use has practical significance for the improvement of various types of online environments. In this research, we use participants' mouse cursor movements to unobtrusively infer negative emotions in various online environments. The ability to infer customer emotional changes in real-time aids in the creation of adaptive systems and an improved customer experience. Read more here.
From Think Tank faculty Martin Dufwenberg, Department of Economics:
Frustration, anger and blame have important consequences for economic and social behavior, concerning for example monopoly pricing, contracting, bargaining, violence and politics. Drawing on insights from psychology, we develop a formal approach to exploring how frustration and anger, via blame and aggression, shape interaction and outcomes in a class of games. Read more here.
From Think Tank faculty Martin Reimann, Department of Marketing:
Can smaller meals make you happy? Consumer decision-making research shows that offering consumers the choice between a full-sized food portion alone and a half-sized portion paired with a small nonfood premium (e.g., a small Happy Meal toy or the possibility of winning frequent flyer miles) motivates smaller portion choice. Read more here.
From Think Tank faculty Oliver Schilke, Department of Management and Organizations:
What makes an exchange disreputable? Many actions are not wrong in of themselves but only when they are being paid for, with examples ranging from commercial bribery to paid adoption to prostitution. This research shows why some such disreputable exchanges may go unnoticed because they are structurally obfuscated. Read more here.
Featured Students For Behavioral Decision Making
- Sydni Fomas Do, PhD Student of marketing: My research examines how socio-cultural and identity factors influence financial decisions. More specifically, I examine how the social construction of gender norms and adverse financial experiences influence financial risk-taking. In my research, I seek to offer insights for enhancing consumer well-being and inclusivity in financial services.
- Christoph Hueller, PhD Student of marketing: My current research interest lies within the concept of trust and how it guides behavioral decision making. Present research has assumed that trust is difficult to build, easy to disrupt, and tedious to restore. It has been claimed that ability, benevolence, and integrity foster trust, whereas deception harms it. I am particularly interested in studying the underlying psychological processes which explain these inferred relationships and observing specific circumstances under which they may not apply.
- Rachel Mannahan, PhD student of economics: I currently research circumstances under which self-esteem concerns lead to self-handicapping behavior and policy interventions that mitigate self-handicapping. Self-handicapping behavior involves creating external obstacles for yourself to avoid believing your low ability level is the source of your failure. Such behaviors include applying to jobs which discriminate against you.
- Ernesto Rivera Mora, PhD student of economics: I study mechanism design problems where preferences depend on hierarchies of beliefs about the agents' traits or types. For instance, agents may by "shy'', "curious'', may have image concerns, privacy concerns or simply may care about the information they get or reveal about their traits. I establish a revelation principle for these environments.
- Kyle (Zhiping) Mao, PhD Student of accounting: My broad research interest is manager-employees strategic interactions and the corporate decision-makings. Specifically, I study and conduct managerial reporting decision-making research, employee in-group decision-making research, and corporate social responsibility research.
- Andy Powell, PhD student of management and organizations: Broadly, I am interested in social class, status, and trust. More specifically, I seek to understand how variable levels of social class and status result in disparate individual cognitions and how individuals experience bias resulting from low social class or low status
Behavioral Research and Videos
New research on behavioral addictions:
Fast-forward to these times to see individual talks:
0:00
BEHAVIORAL ADDICTIONS AND MALADAPTIVE CONSUMPTION
Martin Reimann, University of Arizona
Shailendra P. Jain, University of Washington
4:31
NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF MALADAPTIVE CONSUMPTION:
A triple system neural model of maladaptive consumption
Ofir Turel, California State University Fullerton
Antoine Bechara, University of Southern California
11:36
NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF MALADAPTIVE CONSUMPTION:
Toward an integrative conceptualization of maladaptive consumer behavior
John A. Clithero, University of Oregon
Uma R. Karmarkar, University of California, San Diego
Ming Hsu, University of California, Berkeley
17:45
ON TOBACCO-RELATED DISORDERS:
Application of automated text analysis to examine emotions expressed in online support groups for quitting smoking
Cornelia Pechmann, University of California, Irvine
Erin A. Vogel, Stanford University
25:27
ON ALCOHOL-RELATED DISORDERS:
When does intoxication help or hurt my case? The role of emotionality in the use of intoxication as a discounting cue
Chelsea Galoni, University of Iowa
Kelly Goldsmith, Vanderbilt University
Hal E. Hershfield, University of California, Los Angeles
28:40
ON GAMBLING ADDICTIONS:
Lady Luck: Anthropomorphized luck creates perceptions of risk-sharing and drives pursuit of risky alternatives
Katina Kulow, University of Louisville
Thomas Kramer, University of California, Riverside
Kara Bentley, Chapman University
34:40
ON BEHAVIORAL ADDICTIONS: MATERIALISM AND CLUTTER
How nonconsumption can turn ordinary items into perceived treasures
Jacqueline Rifkin, University of Missouri
Jonah Berger, University of Pennsylvania
39:11
ON BEHAVIORAL ADDICTIONS: PROMISCUITY
Does consumer promiscuity influence purchase intent? The role of AI, change seeking, and pride
Patrick van Esch, Auckland University of Technology
Yuanyuan (Gina) Cui, Auckland University of Technology
45:44
ON BEHAVIORAL ADDICTIONS: SMARTPHONE USAGE
Your screen-time app is keeping track: Consumers are happy to monitor but unlikely to reduce smartphone usage
Laura Zimmermann, IE University Madrid
49:04
ON BEHAVIORAL ADDICTIONS: WORKALCOHOLISM
The role of standards and discrepancy perfectionism in maladaptive consumption
Sylvia Chang, University of Washington
Martin Reimann, University of Arizona
Shailendra P. Jain, University of Washington
Contact Us
By Phone
520-626-0993 office
By Email
General Inquiries
reimann@email.arizona.edu
By Mail
McClelland Hall 401
The University of Arizona
P.O. Box 210108
Tucson, AZ 85721-0108