Research Interests

• Behavioral Intervention
• Computational Modeling
• Decision Making/Choice
• Statistical Modeling

Our work explores how rational goals related to decision making (seeking to favor one option over others) can create polarization and extreme views even in absence of any bias. We build cognitive models of information sampling and how it relates to different goals (choose between options, evaluate options separately, compare options), using simulations to explore and generate quantitative hypotheses about how they create polarization. We then use these models to generate novel interventions that reduce polarization and promote more thorough information search when making judgments -- such as manipulating the type of response we elicit (decision, separate scale ratings, relative evaluation scale). We also explore the spread of polarization and information between individuals or through social networks using agent-based modeling.

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