Time Preference

I am interested in impulsivity and delay discounting, particularly context and framing effects on discounting, intertemporal inconsistencies, the relationship between financial discounting and trait- or behavioural- manifestations of impulsivity. I am also interested in the relationship between delay discounting and risk preference.

Judgemental Forecasting

People's ability to extrapolate trends into the future - whether it be weather, company profits, or sea levels - is limited, and appears to be affected by several systematic biases. I investigate how people extrapolate trends on time series data, and we are biased by recent trials we have experienced, and the ways in which interference from other trials can be reduced.

Taking and Giving Advice

The extent to which people integrate and act on advice from other sources depends on a wide range of factors. I am interested in the way people integrate advice from multiple sources. So if several advisors make different predictions - about house prices, stock markets, portfolio performance - how to people turn these predictions into useful estimates? Can people learn from experience which advisors they can trust, and do they put more weight on the predictions made by those advisors?

Psychology of Taxation

Taxation is vital for the functioning of society, but is almost universally unpopular. I am interested in how people view taxation, how attitudes towards taxation translate into behaviours like tax evasion, and what influence demographics and personality have on these effects. I am also interested in how people's preferences towards progressive, flat, and regressive taxation vary according to framing and other contextual variables.

Game Theory

I am interested in the psychology of game theoretical situations, including Ultimatum Game, Prisoner's Dilemma and Public Goods Game scenarios. I examine individual differences in the way people play these games, in particular the notion of fairness, and the social representation of the games. I have just set up an online system for pairing and playing the Prisoner's Dilemma online, and hope to have some results on this soon.

Cognitive Ageing

People's ability on various cognitive tasks changes across the lifespan, and I am interested in how cognition in general, and executive control in particular changes through adulthood. I also use web-based research to examine life-span effects in young adulthood and middle age.

Sex differences

This is a serendipitous research area, stemming from work with the BBC. I have developed an interest in the effects of sex and sexual orientation on cognitive performance, potential artifacts in sex difference research. And effects of physical and behavioural markers for testosterone on behaviour, particularly game-theoretic decision making.

Handedness and Laterality

I have also become interested in issues around handedness, and although a relative newcomer to the field, I am developing research on the correlates of left-, mixed- and right- handedness, which I hope to run as a large web-based study in the future.