Behavioral Economics Research
Two projects studying decision making, Sept 2014 - Present

Cartoon credit: Bill Watterson

The Norms of Information Sharing Project

I am currently working with professors Erin Krupka of UMSI and Alessandro Acquisti of the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon on a pre-pilot proof of concept in preparation for a grant proposal in mid-February. The hypothesis is that a vicious cycle exists in online privacy norms where applications show users cases where other users have given up personal information, creating a descriptive norm that influences them to give up their information as well. The result could be the creation of a true norm where users believe they should give up their information.

The Green Labels Project

On an interdisciplinary team of School of Information, Ross School of Business, and ERB Institute professors and graduate students I am debugging, documenting, and running the human-subject experiments. The hypothesis is that false green labels in consumer markets decrease trust and value of true green label goods.