David Hagmann
PhD Candidate in Behavioral Decision Research (Expected: 2018)
Department of Social and Decision Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University

Job Market Paper: Persuasion With Motivated Beliefs (February 2017)

David’s interests include information avoidance, behavioral interventions (nudges), and decisions from experience. In his dissertation, David studies persuasion in the presence of motivated reasoning. While we might think that changing someone’s mind is all about exposing them to facts that support our views and challenge theirs, such an approach may be more likely to engender defensive information avoidance rather than receptive information processing. David tests persuasive strategies that increase receptivity to information that challenges what people want to believe using incentivized experiments. Beyond persuasion, David is interested in policy applications of behavioral economics, particularly in the domains of health and finance.