In 2017, I taught an executive education course on managerial decision making to 30 police chiefs. During class, one chief argued that if he always followed recommendations for rational decision making (e.g., by ignoring even large sunk costs), city council would never trust him again. His critique ignited both my curiosity and central research program.
My primary line of research builds upon this experience to reconsider classic work on decision-making biases through the lens of conflict and collaboration. This theory-driven research program identifies when and why avoiding decision biases yields reputational costs (e.g., undermining trust between collaborators). I also develop communication strategies to maintain trust when making optimal decisions. In a second line of work, I examine conflict and collaboration in the face of strongly-held attitudes (e.g., politics), especially the mis-perceptions we hold of conflict counterparts and interventions to overcome these mis-perceptions. In a final line of work, I study how emotions influence health decision making.
Together, my research integrates theory and methods from psychology, organizational behavior, and behavioral economics to examine barriers to effective collaboration. As a complement to longitudinal field studies and agent-based models, I ground my research in behavioral experiments and intentionally study externally valid samples, including police chiefs, national security professionals, city mayors, private-sector managers, low-income smokers, and citizens from over 80 countries. I am committed to developing an inclusive research program that generalizes to populations that are traditionally under-represented in scientific research. Finally, I embrace principles of open science: I publicly post my data, write reproducible code, and pre-register my experiments (links below).
Selected papers published/forthcoming
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). Under-estimating counterparts' learning goals impairs conflictual conversations. Psychological Science. (Researchbox)
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)
Moore, M., Dorison, C.A., & Minson, J.A. The reputational benefits of selective exposure to partisan information. Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Selected papers under review
Dorison, C.A., & Kteily, N., Looking good vs. seeking good: Group-based reputational incentives can reduce (or even eliminate) aversion to societal harm. 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., & Kteily, N.S. Winning at all costs? Partisans (and researchers) over-estimate others’ willingness to trade-off material suffering for group-based reputational gain.
Dorison, C.A., Umphres, C., DeWees, B., & Lerner, J.S. The benefits of bias: Decision makers who exhibit sunk cost bias receive reputational and financial 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.
Jackson, J.C. & Dorison, C.A., Cultural evolutionary dynamics reinforce biased judgment in a social network.
My primary line of research builds upon this experience to reconsider classic work on decision-making biases through the lens of conflict and collaboration. This theory-driven research program identifies when and why avoiding decision biases yields reputational costs (e.g., undermining trust between collaborators). I also develop communication strategies to maintain trust when making optimal decisions. In a second line of work, I examine conflict and collaboration in the face of strongly-held attitudes (e.g., politics), especially the mis-perceptions we hold of conflict counterparts and interventions to overcome these mis-perceptions. In a final line of work, I study how emotions influence health decision making.
Together, my research integrates theory and methods from psychology, organizational behavior, and behavioral economics to examine barriers to effective collaboration. As a complement to longitudinal field studies and agent-based models, I ground my research in behavioral experiments and intentionally study externally valid samples, including police chiefs, national security professionals, city mayors, private-sector managers, low-income smokers, and citizens from over 80 countries. I am committed to developing an inclusive research program that generalizes to populations that are traditionally under-represented in scientific research. Finally, I embrace principles of open science: I publicly post my data, write reproducible code, and pre-register my experiments (links below).
Selected papers published/forthcoming
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). Under-estimating counterparts' learning goals impairs conflictual conversations. Psychological Science. (Researchbox)
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)
Moore, M., Dorison, C.A., & Minson, J.A. The reputational benefits of selective exposure to partisan information. Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Selected papers under review
Dorison, C.A., & Kteily, N., Looking good vs. seeking good: Group-based reputational incentives can reduce (or even eliminate) aversion to societal harm. 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., & Kteily, N.S. Winning at all costs? Partisans (and researchers) over-estimate others’ willingness to trade-off material suffering for group-based reputational gain.
Dorison, C.A., Umphres, C., DeWees, B., & Lerner, J.S. The benefits of bias: Decision makers who exhibit sunk cost bias receive reputational and financial 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.
Jackson, J.C. & Dorison, C.A., Cultural evolutionary dynamics reinforce biased judgment in a social network.
