Research

I research:
(1) Goal Achievement, and
(2) Learning from Experience
using lab-based and field experiments that I augment with archival analysis and qualitative interviews.

Goal Achievement

Self-control failures underlie several important behavioral and societal problems. Procrastination, failure to maintain an exercise program, and inadequate retirement savings all reflect a trade-off between short-term gratification and long-term benefits. In a number of projects, I research commitment contracts which are a self-control strategy where a person agrees to have a penalty imposed on them by a third party if they don’t meet their goal. For example, a person trying to lose 10 pounds might write a check to a political organization they despise and give that check to a friend if they don’t the 10 pounds. Specifically, I look at the decision making process of choosing a commitment contract and whether people can learn to set more effective contracts.

Learning from Experience

Ut est rerum omnlum magister usus

According to the proverb above, experience is the best teacher. In my research on learning, I examine whether the causal attributions people make based on their experiences are accurate (e.g., a coach might say, “the reason we won the game is our players just wanted it more”). I have found that people misattribute skill for randomness in competitive outcomes, and in a separate project, that people overly rely on their own learning during a crisis, even when it becomes obvious that what they ‘learned’ is inaccurate.