Research Areas
Judgment and decision making; emotion; sympathy biases and charitable giving; consumer behavior; gender
Current Projects
“Reference-Dependent Sympathy.”; "Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction: Tightwads and Spendthrifts in Marriage” (with Scott I. Rick and Eli J. Finkel).
Representative Publications
(with N.M. Verrochi)
“The face of need: Facial emotion expression on charity advertisements.” Journal of Marketing Research (Forthcoming).
(with U. Simonsohn)
“Friends of Victims: Personal experience and prosocial behavior.” Journal of Consumer Research (Forthcoming).
(with M. Gelfand, L. Babcock and H. Gettman)
"Who goes to the bargaining table? Understanding gender variation in the initiation of negotiation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93(4), 600-613 (2007).
(with D.A. Moore)
"Error and bias in comparative social judgment: On being both better and worse than we think we are." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92(6), 972-989 (2007).
(with G. Loewenstein)
“The scarecrow and the tin man: The vicissitudes of human sympathy and caring” The Review of General Psychology 11(2), 112-126 (2007).
(with G. Loewenstein and P. Slovic)
"Sympathy and callousness: The impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 102(2), 143-153 (2007).
(with J.S. Lerner and G. Loewenstein)
"Heart strings and purse strings: Effects of specific emotions on economic transactions." Psychological Science 15(5), 337-341 (2004).
(with G. Loewenstein)
"Helping 'A' victim or helping 'THE' victim: Altruism and Identifiability." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 26(1), 5-16 (2003).
(with J.S. Lerner, R.M. Gonzalez, and B. Fischhoff)
"Emotion and perceived risks of terrorism: A national field experiment." Psychological Science 14(2), 144-150 (2003).
Education
PhD, Carnegie Mellon University , 2004; BA, University of Pennsylvania, 1999
Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards
Wharton Risk Center Fellow, APA Science Directorate Dissertation Award, 2003; Russell Sage Foundation, small research grant for “Identifiability”, 2003
Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 2004-present. University of Pennsylvania: 2007-present (Psychology Department)
Other Positions
Associate Analyst, Abt Associates, 1999-2000
