We study how people make wise decisions: in everyday life, across cultures, and over time. Our work sits at the intersection of Social & Cultural Psychology and Judgment & Decision Making, with computational methods and projects on human-AI interactions and AI value alignment.
We combine survey, behavioral, and computational approaches (modeling, NLP, and large-scale analyses), and we preregister studies, share analysis code, and document everything so others can replicate and extend our work.
Wise Judgment Consortium is a global, preregistered collaboration led by our lab to map the building blocks of wise judgment across cultures.
- 15 labs · 5 continents · ~3,500+ participants so far.
- Latest update: Preregistration and Study 1 data collection (“Life’s most difficult decisions”) complete; analyses and design of data collection underway.
- Next: data lock 2025-Q4, then analysis and write-up.
News
Call for Research Proposals – Wise Judgment Consortium
The Wise Judgment Consortium (WJC) invites researchers in psychology and other cognitive and decision sciences to pitch their favourite research idea for upcoming Pathways to Wisdom project.
Job Adv. - Postdoctoral Scholar
The Rational Altruism Lab invites applications for a Postdoc-Employee position on developing computational models of moral decision-making in social dilemmas. The intended start date is Fall 2026.
WaC Research Featured in Nautilus!
Check out this recent article in Nautilus on new cross-cultural research revealing that, across both traditional and collectivist societies as well as modern and individualistic ones, people tend to prefer trusting their own judgment over following others’ advice.