RESEARCH
AREAS OF RESEARCH
Nearly every choice involves a conflict. By choosing one option I am forfeiting another alternative option. Such conflicts exist in nearly every aspect of our lives- from personal health and fitness to social settings and policy making. I am particularly interested in the ways people deliberate between different motives and values they endorse when making decisions in social settings. My research revealed that personal responsibility, namely- the need to actively make a decision, plays a crucial role in shaping people’s pursuit for their values. That is- when one is asked to make a choice herself, her preferences may appear to be quite different than the preferences she would display when someone else makes the exact same choice.
https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000273
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-58993-0_6
I use process tracing techniques such as eye-tracking and mouse-tracking to uncover the basic psychological processes underlying people’s decisions. Tracking participants’ eyes can unravel the way they process visual information, and illuminate the aspects that better capture their attention in the decision process. Mouse tracing is used as a proxy of conflict, showing the path in which participants move their computer mouse towards the selected option. By tracing participants’ mouse trajectories, we can assess the situations that pose a greater decisional conflict for the decision maker.
https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2205
Empathy is broadly defined as the ability to understand and share other people’s feelings, perceptions, and experiences. Research has documented a wide range of benefits for empathy in the workplace, from increasing cooperation among employees to driving corporate philanthropy decisions. I am interested in the way people empathize with groups of people, as well as the personal and contextual factors that affect their propensity to empathize with others.
Humans are social creatures. We often engage in behaviors which might be costly to us, but yield benefits to others. Such behaviors include for example generosity, trust, cooperation and reciprocity. I am interested in ways that encourage pro-social behaviors, and how different thinking styles affect the probability that people would engage in such behaviors.