Richard Gonzalez
Center Director, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research
Co-Director, BioSocial Methods Collaborative
Amos N Tversky Collegiate Professor, Psychology and Statistics, LSA
Professor of Integrative Systems and Design, College of Engineering
| E-mail: | Email Richard Gonzalez |
| Address: | Research Center for Group Dynamics Institute for Social Research University of Michigan 426 Thompson Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 |
| Phone: | 734-647-6785 |
Decision Making
Facilitating genetic counseling for BRCA1/2
This study tests alternate ways of presenting information during a genetic counseling session.
Ranks, rivals and competition
In this paper we examine the role of rank, such as whether you are ranked #3 or #4 or #97 or #98 out of a hundred, on choices of strategy. The findings have implications for theories of motivation, social comparison, cooperation and competition.
Worry and its role in medical decision making
Standard approaches to medical decision making, such as the Health Belief Model, focus mostly on the cognitive aspects of decisions, such as balancing perceived severity and perceived benefits. Our analysis shows that important affective variables, such as worry and appraisals, play an additional role in predicting actual medical choices, such as the choice to pursue genetic testing for breast cancer. These findings suggest the need to develop broader models of how people make decisions in health care domains.
How to improve adherence to medical treatment in older adults
In this chapter we review the judgment and decision making literature for insights into encouraging adherence to medical regimens in older adults.
How can behavioral decision theory contribute to product design?
The field of engineering design have been making use of some standard consumer decision making findings and models, such as discrete choice models. We review the notion of constructed preferences from the behavioral literature and work through some implications for engineering design models, including designing for sustainability in a way that is sensitive to preference inconsistency in consumers. We provide interpretations of some of our own studies along these lines.
Is advice treated the same way as evidence in a learning task?
This paper we investigate several mathematical models of learning and extend them to include advice from others as part of the learning mechanism. We find that a type of reinforcement learning model does well at accounting for the explore-exploit behavior present in the experimental task, and accounts for the data better than Bayesian models. We designed a second study to tease apart model predictions.
Decisions and stress: A brief review
Israel Liberzon and I published a chapter reviewing the role of stress in decision making.
Preferences and product attributes
We use discrete choice analysis to study the role of crux and sentinel attributes in product choice. We introduce the distinction between types of attributes that become important when designing products geared at changing people’s behavior, such as buying recycled goods.
Neural correlations of uncertainty and underconfidence
An fMRI study examining underconfidence in the context of Bayesian updating.
Regret, disappointment, decisions and the brain
We use imaging data to help discriminate the role of different emotional states such as regret and disappointment in the context of decision making.
