I enthusiastically pursue two research goals: Uncovering fundamental insights about human behavior and creating actionable recommendations that improve organizational outcomes. To achieve these goals, I ground my research in behavioral experiments and intentionally study diverse populations, including citizens from over 80 countries, national security professionals, city mayors, police chiefs, and private-sector managers. Finally, I embrace principles of open science: I publicly post my data and pre-register my experiments (links below for first-authored papers).
My primary line of work examines reputation and decision making. Specifically, I re-consider classic work on decision-making biases through a social/organizational lens. This program of research reveals that several seemingly optimal behaviors, such as de-escalation of commitment to failing courses of action, yield reputational costs for leaders. This work uncovers reputational costs to rational behavior and thus identifies a novel leadership challenge between short-term reputation management and long-term value-maximizing choices. In my second line of work, I examine how emotions drive decision making in two critically important domains: conflict and health. I am particularly interested in mis-perceptions during conflict. Together, my research integrates theory and methods from psychology, organizational behavior, economics, and affective science to examine barriers to effective organizational decision making.
Selected papers accepted/published
Dorison, C.A. & Minson, J.A. (2022). You can’t handle the truth! Conflict counterparts over-estimate each other's feelings of self-threat. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. (ResearchBox)
Collins, H., Dorison, C.A., Minson, J.A., & Gino, F. (2022). Underestimating counterparts' learning goals impairs conflictual conversations. Psychological Science.
Dorison, C.A., & Heller, B. (2022) Observers penalize decision makers whose risk preferences are unaffected by loss-gain framing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. (ResearchBox)
Dorison, C.A., Umphres, C., & Lerner, J.S. (2021) Staying the course: Decision makers who escalate commitment are trusted and trustworthy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. (OSF)
Wang, K., Goldenberg, A., Dorison, C.A., Miller, J., Lerner, J.S., Gross, J.J., & 100+ others (2021). A global test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human Behaviour. (OSF)
Dorison, C.A., Wang, K., Rees, V., Kawachi, I., Ericson, K.M.M., & Lerner, J.S. (2020). Sadness, but not all negative emotions, heightens addictive substance use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(2), 943-949. (OSF)
Dorison, C.A., Minson, J.A., & Rogers, T. (2019). Selective exposure partly relies on faulty affective forecasts. Cognition. 188(1), 98-107. (OSF)
Selected papers with revision requested
Dorison, C.A., DeWees, B., & Minson, J.A. Beyond accuracy: The reputational costs of independent judgment aggregation. Revise & Resubmit, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. (OSF)
Dorison, C.A., Coles, N.A., Lerner, J.S., Heller, B.H., Rothman, A.J., Kawachi, I.I., Wang, K., Rees, V.W., Gill, B.P., Gibbs, N., & Psychological Science Accelerator COVID-19 Rapid Team (including 400+ co-authors). In COVID-19 health messaging, loss framing increases anxiety with little-to-no concomitant benefits: Experimental evidence from 84 countries. Revise & Resubmit, Affective Science. (OSF)
Selected papers under review
Dorison, C.A., & Kteily, N., Reputational stakes shape partisans' reactions to material suffering. Under review.(ResearchBox)
Kristal, A., Dorison, C.A., & Gino, F. Precommitment allows leaders to maintain trust when de-escalating commitment. Under review.
Selected papers in preparation
Dorison, C.A., Umphres, C., DeWees, B., & Lerner, J.S. The benefits of bias: Decision makers who exhibit sunk cost bias receive social and economic rewards for doing so.
Dorison, C.A., DeWees, B., Rahwan, Z., Robichaud, C., & Lerner, J.S. When waste pays: Inefficient (but seemingly fair) resource allocations are used to signal trustworthiness.
My primary line of work examines reputation and decision making. Specifically, I re-consider classic work on decision-making biases through a social/organizational lens. This program of research reveals that several seemingly optimal behaviors, such as de-escalation of commitment to failing courses of action, yield reputational costs for leaders. This work uncovers reputational costs to rational behavior and thus identifies a novel leadership challenge between short-term reputation management and long-term value-maximizing choices. In my second line of work, I examine how emotions drive decision making in two critically important domains: conflict and health. I am particularly interested in mis-perceptions during conflict. Together, my research integrates theory and methods from psychology, organizational behavior, economics, and affective science to examine barriers to effective organizational decision making.
Selected papers accepted/published
Dorison, C.A. & Minson, J.A. (2022). You can’t handle the truth! Conflict counterparts over-estimate each other's feelings of self-threat. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. (ResearchBox)
Collins, H., Dorison, C.A., Minson, J.A., & Gino, F. (2022). Underestimating counterparts' learning goals impairs conflictual conversations. Psychological Science.
Dorison, C.A., & Heller, B. (2022) Observers penalize decision makers whose risk preferences are unaffected by loss-gain framing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. (ResearchBox)
Dorison, C.A., Umphres, C., & Lerner, J.S. (2021) Staying the course: Decision makers who escalate commitment are trusted and trustworthy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. (OSF)
Wang, K., Goldenberg, A., Dorison, C.A., Miller, J., Lerner, J.S., Gross, J.J., & 100+ others (2021). A global test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human Behaviour. (OSF)
Dorison, C.A., Wang, K., Rees, V., Kawachi, I., Ericson, K.M.M., & Lerner, J.S. (2020). Sadness, but not all negative emotions, heightens addictive substance use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(2), 943-949. (OSF)
Dorison, C.A., Minson, J.A., & Rogers, T. (2019). Selective exposure partly relies on faulty affective forecasts. Cognition. 188(1), 98-107. (OSF)
Selected papers with revision requested
Dorison, C.A., DeWees, B., & Minson, J.A. Beyond accuracy: The reputational costs of independent judgment aggregation. Revise & Resubmit, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. (OSF)
Dorison, C.A., Coles, N.A., Lerner, J.S., Heller, B.H., Rothman, A.J., Kawachi, I.I., Wang, K., Rees, V.W., Gill, B.P., Gibbs, N., & Psychological Science Accelerator COVID-19 Rapid Team (including 400+ co-authors). In COVID-19 health messaging, loss framing increases anxiety with little-to-no concomitant benefits: Experimental evidence from 84 countries. Revise & Resubmit, Affective Science. (OSF)
Selected papers under review
Dorison, C.A., & Kteily, N., Reputational stakes shape partisans' reactions to material suffering. Under review.(ResearchBox)
Kristal, A., Dorison, C.A., & Gino, F. Precommitment allows leaders to maintain trust when de-escalating commitment. Under review.
Selected papers in preparation
Dorison, C.A., Umphres, C., DeWees, B., & Lerner, J.S. The benefits of bias: Decision makers who exhibit sunk cost bias receive social and economic rewards for doing so.
Dorison, C.A., DeWees, B., Rahwan, Z., Robichaud, C., & Lerner, J.S. When waste pays: Inefficient (but seemingly fair) resource allocations are used to signal trustworthiness.
