Motivation and Beliefs

Motivation is one of the strongest predictors of success. I explore how strategies that change beliefs can motivate students and their supporters follow-through on their intentions.

I also collaborate with the SPIEE Lab to leverage social psychological theories to address beliefs around issues of environmental education, sustainability, conservation, and climate change.


Relevant Work


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2022. “Worth more than 1000 words: How photographs can bolster viewers’ valuing of biodiversity” (with Hunter Gehlbach, Christine C. Vriesema, Eduardo Bernal & Ursula K. Heise), Environmental Conservation.


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2021. “The Demotivating Effect (and Unintended Message) of Awards” (with Jana Gallus, Monica G. Lee & Todd Rogers), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.


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2019. “Leveraging cognitive consistency to nudge conservative climate change beliefs” (with Hunter Gehlbach & Christine C. Vriesema), Journal of Environmental Psychology.


2018. “Some middle school students want behavioral commitment devices (But take-up does not affect their behavior” (with Gonzalo Pons, Angela L. Duckworth & Todd Rogers), Frontiers in Psychology.

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2016. “Forecasting student achievement: The potential of natural language processing” (with Mike Yeomans, Christopher Hulleman & Hunter Gehlbach), In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge.

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Public Writing & Press


Digital Promise. “Does offering students a choice in assignments lead to greater engagement?”

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Harvard’s Usable Knowledge. “Learning to Self Manage.”

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American Psychological Association. “Climate Change Conversations Can Be Difficult for Both Skeptics, Environmentalists”


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Pacific Standard. “How to convince a conservative climate change is real.”