Appalachian State University
I study how people make judgments and decisions, especially when desires, expectations, and biases shape the process. My work spans wishful thinking, risk perception, anchoring effects, and the estimation of averages. I'm also committed to open science and replication in psychological research.
Research
People tend to believe desired outcomes are more likely to occur. My research examines the consequences of these optimistic biases, including how they shape preparation, information seeking, and prediction, and whether interventions can improve accuracy.
From job applications to investments, people must weigh potential benefits against costs. I study situational and personality factors, including anxiety and social context, that influence willingness to take risks.
When people judge the average of a group, such as a class's performance or a team's speed, their estimates are systematically biased by group size. I study how and why these "sample size biases" arise.
Exposure to numeric values influences subsequent estimates, from jury awards to everyday decisions. My research examines factors that mitigate anchoring effects and the downstream consequences of biased estimates.
I conduct direct and conceptual replications of influential findings in social psychology and JDM. This work contributes to a cumulative, self-correcting science and helps evaluate the robustness of foundational effects.
People's desires and preferences can bias how they process information, evaluate evidence, and form beliefs. I investigate the boundary conditions of these motivated biases across domains ranging from elections to health decisions.
Commitment
The replication crisis has fundamentally changed how I approach research. I preregister studies, share materials and data publicly, and prioritize transparent reporting. These practices aren't just methodological preferences — they reflect a commitment to doing science that is cumulative and trustworthy.
I also integrate open science principles into my teaching and mentorship, preparing the next generation of researchers to prioritize rigor and transparency from the start. Visit my OSF profile to see my publicly available materials and data.
Hypotheses and analysis plans registered before data collection
Datasets, stimuli, and code shared publicly via the Open Science Framework
Systematic replications of influential effects in social psychology and JDM
Effect sizes, confidence intervals, and rigorous statistical practices
Lab
The SCaMR Lab investigates how motivation, desire, and context shape the way people make judgments and decisions. Our work spans wishful thinking, risk perception, anchoring, and replication science. Graduate and undergraduate students are central to every stage of the research process — from study design and data collection to analysis and publication.
Undergraduates interested in gaining research experience can enroll in PSY 4001 (Research Assistant). Graduate students in the Psychological Science M.A. program work closely with me on thesis research and collaborative projects.
Publications
Wishful thinking in the 2020 US presidential election: Does perspective taking mitigate the preference–expectation link?
Judgment and Decision Making, 21, e4.
Does physiological arousal increase social transmission of information? Two replications of Berger (2011).
Psychological Science, 35(9), 1025–1034.
A multilab replication of the induced-compliance paradigm of cognitive dissonance.
Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 7(1).
Which measures of perceived vulnerability predict protective intentions—and when?
Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 46(6), 912–929.
People express more bias in their predictions than in their likelihood judgments.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(1), 45–59.
The desirability bias in predictions under aleatory and epistemic uncertainty.
Cognition, 229, 105254.
Attributions for ambiguity in a treatment-decision context can create ambiguity aversion or seeking.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 35(1), e2249.
Do people prescribe optimism, overoptimism, or neither?
Psychological Science, 32(10), 1605–1616.
The effects of tool comparisons when estimating the likelihood of task success.
Judgment and Decision Making, 16(1), 165–200.
Context dependency in risky decision making: Is there a description-experience gap?
PLoS ONE, 16(2), e0245969.
An integrated approach to biases in referent-specific judgments.
Thinking & Reasoning, 26(4), 581–614.
Risk it? Direct and collateral impacts of peers' verbal expressions about hazard likelihoods.
Thinking & Reasoning, 23(3), 259–291.
Confidently biased: Comparisons with anchors bias estimates and increase confidence.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(3), 731–743.
Behaving optimistically: How the (un)desirability of an outcome can bias people's preparations for it.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(1), 54–69.
The relationship between anxiety and risk taking is moderated by ambiguity.
Personality and Individual Differences, 95, 40–44.
Sources of bias in peoples' social-comparative estimates of food consumption.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22, 173–183.
Resisting anchoring effects: The roles of metric and mapping knowledge.
Memory & Cognition, 43(7), 1071–1084.
Sample size bias in judgments of perceptual averages.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(5), 1321–1331.
Knowledge matters: Anchoring effects are moderated by knowledge level.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 97–108.
Why so confident? The influence of outcome desirability on selective exposure and likelihood judgment.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120, 73–86.
Hope to be right: Biased information seeking following arbitrary and informed predictions.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 106–112.
Debiasing egocentrism and optimism biases in repeated competitions.
Judgment & Decision Making, 7, 761–767.
Hoping for more: The influence of outcome desirability on information seeking and predictions about relative quantities.
Cognition, 125, 113–117.
Biased calculations: Numeric anchors influence answers to math equations.
Judgment and Decision Making, 6, 139–146.
The desirability bias in predictions: Going optimistic without leaving realism.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 111, 33–47.
Are people excessive or judicious in their egocentrism? A modeling approach to understanding bias and accuracy in people's optimism.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 253–273.
Effect of target group size on risk judgments and comparative optimism: The more, the riskier.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 382–398.
* ASU graduate student · For a complete list, see Google Scholar
Teaching