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 to 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

2024. “The illusion of information adequacy” (with Hunter Gehlbach & Angus Fletcher), PLOS ONE.

2022. “Addressing the vexing educational challenges of biodiversity loss: A photo-based intervention” (with Hunter Gehlbach, Nan Mu, Rohan Arcot, Claire Chuter, Kate Cornwall, Lisa Nehring & Christine C. Vriesema), Contemporary Educational Psychology.

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.

2021. “The demotivating effect (and unintended message) of awards” (with Jana Gallus, Monica G. Lee & Todd Rogers), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

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 behavior commitment devices (but take-up does not affect their behavior)” (with Gonzalo Pons, Angela L. Duckworth & Todd Rogers), Frontiers in Psychology.

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

Public Writing & Press

Digital Promise. “Does Offering Students a Choice in Assignments Lead to Greater Engagement?”

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

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

Pacific Standard. “How to Convince a Conservative That Climate Change Is Real.”