Recent and Current Research
Our research seeks to improve personal, societal, and environmental well-being, primarily through improving self-control. Below we summarize a few recent and ongoing projects. Please see our publications page for a complete list of projects and papers. Please feel free to send us an email if you would like to learn more!
Why is Self-Control Important?
What do healthy eating, exercising, financial saving, honesty, social harmony, and sustainability all have in common? Self-control! That is, they all require people to forego an immediate desire (e.g., skipping an unnecessary purchase or illegally dipping into the company coffers) in order to implement the behavior that is beneficial in the long-run (e.g., financial and environmental well-being or honesty).
Because self-control failure generates substantial personal and societal costs, we try to understand how self-control works so we can improve it. In this way, we can try to help people live their best lives, such as by eating healthier (e.g., Mead and Patrick 2016), being more productive and happy (Mead, Patrick, Gunadi, and Hoffman 2016), and saving more money (Garbinsky, Mead, and Gregg 2021).
In the following slides, we provide an overview of ongoing work in two areas where a better understanding of self-control may help to solve some timely and pressing problems, particularly among vulnerable people. Please see our publications page for more details.
Collaborators
Lawrence Williams
Associate Professor of Marketing
Chair, Professional Effectiveness Division
Leeds School of Business,
University of Colorado
Kathleen Vohs
Distinguished Chair in Marketing
Land O'Lakes Chair in Marketing
Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
Raffaele Conti
Professor of Management
ESSEC Business School
Emily Garbinsky
Associate Professor of Marketing
SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University
Jen Overbeck
Associate Professor of Management
Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne
Roy Baumeister
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
President-Elect, International Positive Psychology Association
Florida State University;
University of Queensland
Amy Muise
Associate Professor of Psychology
York Research Chair in Relationships and Sexuality
York University
Nailya Ordabayeva
Associate Professor of Marketing
Carroll School of Management,
Boston College
Daniel Gregg
Director/Founder of Econ-Lab Economic Analysis and Interventions
Director/Co-Founder of Intersection Traders (smallholder-inclusive coffee supply chains)
University of New England, Australia
Kobe Millet
Associate Professor of Marketing
School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam