Welcome to Berlin: Elke U. Weber & Eric J. Johnson
The two researchers Elke U. Weber, Princeton University, USA and Eric J. Johnson, Columbia Business School, USA have received funding from the Einstein Foundation Berlin as Einstein visiting fellows. They will also spend several weeks on assignments in Berlin.
Elke U. Weber works on psychological theories regarding how personal experiences, social norms and interactions affect decision-making and actions. Her current research looks particularly at decisions that impact the sustainable development of our natural environment as well as those made in a social and physical context. Norm violations often have negative social or material consequences, especially in collectivist cultures. Weber asks what determines the way we perceive changes in social norms and whether these dynamics can be used to accelerate change and create shifts in behavior. She is also connected to the ECCC, which is currently being established.
Image: Elke U. Weber
Eric J. Johnson is a faculty member at Columbia University’s Columbia Business School, where he is the first holder of the Norman Eig Chair of Business and director of the Center for Decision Sciences. In his research, he examines the interface between behavioral decision research and economics. This includes how decisions made by consumers and business managers affect public policy, markets, and marketing. In his project at Technische Universität Berlin, he is researching “choice architectures,” i.e. ways to represent choice options and facilitate choice processes by harnessing the diverse social, economic, and psychological motivations that shape our actions.