I am Professor of Economic Psychology at CREED (Center for Research in Experimental Economics and political Decision making) at the University of Amsterdam, and a fellow of the Tinbergen Institute and the Amsterdam Brain and Cognition center. I study how people deal with information that bears on their interests and their morals, using experiments and game theory. My work falls into the five themes below; the Research page lists all my papers.
Research themes
Willful ignorance. People often avoid information about how their choices affect others, and use that ignorance as an excuse to act selfishly. I study why they do this, how much it costs, and how ignorance spreads from person to person.
Motivated beliefs. People hold beliefs that are convenient rather than accurate: beliefs that make them feel good, help them persuade others, or justify their side. I study when such motives distort beliefs, and what this implies for overconfidence and political polarization.
Inequality and redistribution. Support for redistribution depends on what people believe about the causes and the size of inequality. I study how self-interest and selective attention shape judgments of fairness, and how well citizens understand the distribution of income and wealth.
Information and climate policy. Governments rely on information campaigns to reduce emissions. I study whether telling consumers about carbon emissions changes what they buy, and argue that information does more good when it helps voters understand climate policy.
Measuring beliefs. Most of this work requires knowing what people believe. I have developed and reviewed methods that give experimental participants an incentive to report their beliefs truthfully.