Department of Psychology
PAS building, room 3020
Tel 519-888-4567 Ext. 42813
Fax (519) 746-8631
Email psych@uwaterloo.ca
Research in my lab explores people and cultures, sometimes together, and often across time. Most of our work either focuses on how people make sense of the world around them—their expectations, lay theories, meta-cognitions, forecasts—or it concerns how larger cultural forces impact human behaviour and societal change. Currently, we are working on the topics of wise reasoning, intellectual humility, empathy, mindfulness, normative standards of judgment, as well as the power of forecasting societal change by advocates of clashing view on the future.
Our work incorporates perspectives from anthropology, behavioural ecology, economics, philosophy, as well as psychology, and we collaborate with scholars in these disciplines from around the world. We also use a range of methods, including field studies, laboratory and online behavioral experiments, narrative diaries, psychophysiology, and big data analytics (machine learning, natural language processing). We especially emphasize the use of mixed methods combining diverse levels of analysis and bridging qualitative and quantitative techniques for understanding how humans make sense of their world and societal change.
Grossmann, I., Dorfman, A., Oakes, H., Santos, H. C., Vohs, K. D., & Scholer, A. A. (2021). Training for wisdom: The distanced self-reflection diary method. Psychological Science, 32, 381–394. View PDF
Grossmann, I., Eibach, R. P., Koyama, J., & Sahi, Q. (2020). Folk standards of sound judgment: Rationality versus reasonableness. Science Advances, 6, eaaz0289. View PDF
Grossmann, I., Weststrate, N. M., Ardelt, M., Brienza, J. P., Dong, M., Ferrari, M., Fournier, M. A., Hu, C. S., Nusbaum, H. C. & Vervaeke, J. (2020). The science of wisdom in a polarized world: Knowns and unknowns. Psychological Inquiry, 31, 103-133. View PDF
Varnum, M. E. W. & Grossmann, I. (2017). Cultural change: The how and the why. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12, 956–972. View PDF
Department of Psychology
PAS building, room 3020
Tel 519-888-4567 Ext. 42813
Fax (519) 746-8631
Email psych@uwaterloo.ca
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Office of Indigenous Relations.