Daniel M. Bartels

Professor of Marketing, University of Chicago, 2018 – Present

Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Chicago, 2016 – 2018

Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Chicago, 2013 – 2016

Assistant Professor of Marketing, Columbia University, 2010 – 2013

Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Decision Research, University of Chicago, 2007 - 2010

Education

Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, Northwestern University, 2007

Committee: Douglas Medin (chair), Lance Rips, Reid Hastie

M.S., Cognitive Psychology, Northwestern University, 2002

B.S., Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, 2001

Research Interests

Judgment and Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, Moral Psychology, Concepts and Categories

Published Papers

Fei, Lin, Daniel M. Bartels, and Walter W. Zhang (forthcoming), “Consumers’ Mental Representation of Expenditures: Implications for Spending and Saving Decisions,” Journal of Consumer Research.

Schulze, Christin, Ada Aka, Daniel M. Bartels, Stefan F. Bucher, Jake R. Embrey, … Ben R. Newell (forthcoming), “A Timeline of Cognitive Costs in Decision Making,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Osborn Popp, Pamela J., Ben R. Newell, Daniel M. Bartels, and Todd M. Gureckis (2025), “Can Cognitive Discovery be Incentivized with Money?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154, 1025-1037.

Abdurahman, Suhaib, Alireza Salkhordeh Ziabari, Alexander K. Moore, Daniel M. Bartels, and Morteza Dehghani (2025), "A Primer for Evaluating Large Language Models in Social Science Research," Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 8, 1-25.

Bartels, Daniel M., Ye Li, and Soaham Bharti (2023), “How well do laboratory-derived estimates of time preference predict real-world behaviors? Comparisons to four benchmarks,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 32, 2651-2665.

Dietvorst, Berkeley J. and Daniel M. Bartels (2022), “Consumers Object to Algorithms Making Morally Relevant Tradeoffs Because of Algorithms’ Consequentialist Decision Strategies,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 32, 404-424.

Li, Ye, Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb, Daniel Wall, Olivier Toubia, Eric J. Johnson, and Daniel M. Bartels (2022), “The more you ask, the less you get: When additional questions hurt external validity,” Journal of Marketing Research, 59, 963-982.

Molouki, Sarah and Daniel M. Bartels (2020), "Are Future Selves Treated like Others? Comparing Determinants and Levels of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Allocations," Cognition, 196, 104150.

Landy, J. F., Jia, M., Ding, I. L., Viganola, D., Tierney, W., . . . Uhlmann, E. L. (2020), "Crowdsourcing hypothesis tests: Making transparent how design choices shape research results," Psychological Bulletin, 146, 451-479.

Molouki, Sarah, Stephanie Y. Chen, Oleg Urminsky, and Daniel M. Bartels (2020), "How Personal Theories of the Self Shape Beliefs about Identity Continuity." In E. Lambert & J. Schwenkler (Eds.) Becoming Someone New: Essays on Transformative Experience, Choice, and Change. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Urminsky, Oleg and Daniel M. Bartels (2019), "Identity, Personal Continuity, and Psychological Connectedness across Time and over Transformation," in A.M. Reed II & M. Forehand (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Identity Theory in Marketing. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Landy, Justin F. and Daniel M. Bartels (2018), "An Empirically-Derived Taxonomy of Moral Concepts," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147, 1748-1761.

Hershfield, Hal E. and Daniel M. Bartels (2018), "The Future Self." In G. Oettingen, A.T. Sevincer, & P.M. Gollwitzer (Eds.) The Psychology of Thinking about the Future. The Guilford Press, 89-109.

Atlas, Stephen A. and Daniel M. Bartels (2018), "Periodic Pricing and Perceived Contract Benefits," Journal of Consumer Research, 45, 350-364.

Landy, Justin F., Daniel K. Walco, and Daniel M. Bartels (2017), "What's Wrong with Using Steroids? Exploring Whether and Why People Oppose the Use of Performance Enhancing Drugs," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 377-392.

Molouki, Sarah and Daniel M. Bartels (2017), "Personal Change and the Continuity of the Self," Cognitive Psychology, 93, 1-17.

Chen, Stephanie Y., Oleg Urminsky, and Daniel M. Bartels. (2016), "Beliefs About the Causal Structure of the Self-Concept Determine Which Changes Disrupt Personal Identity," Psychological Science, 27, 1398-1406.

Bartels, Daniel M., Christopher W. Bauman, Fiery A. Cushman, David A. Pizarro, and A. Peter McGraw (2016), "Moral Judgment and Decision Making." In G. Keren & G. Wu (Eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 478-515.

Bartels, Daniel M. and Oleg Urminsky (2015), "To Know and To Care: How Awareness and Valuation of the Future Jointly Shape Consumer Spending," Journal of Consumer Research, 41, 1469-1485. Media: ¶

Reinholtz, Nicholas, Daniel M. Bartels, and Jeffrey R. Parker (2015), "On the Mental Accounting of Restricted-Use Funds: How Gift Cards Change What People Purchase," Journal of Consumer Research, 42, 596-614.

Bartels, Daniel M. and Eric J. Johnson (2015), "Connecting Cognition and Consumer Choice," Cognition, 135, 47-51.

Stewart, Neil, Christoph Ungemach, Adam J. L. Harris, Daniel M. Bartels, Ben R. Newell, Gabriele Paolacci, and Jesse Chandler (2015), "The Average Laboratory Samples a Population of 7,300 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers," Judgment and Decision Making, 10, 479-491.

Bauman, Christopher W., A. Peter McGraw, Daniel M. Bartels, and Caleb Warren (2014), "Revisiting External Validity: Concerns about Trolley Problems and Other Sacrificial Dilemmas in Moral Psychology," Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8/9, 536-554. Media: ‡, ‡ §.

Newman, George E., Daniel M. Bartels, and Rosanna K. Smith (2014), "Are Artworks More like People than Artifacts? Individual Concepts and their extensions," Topics in Cognitive Science, 6, 647-662. Media: *

Urminsky, Oleg, Daniel M. Bartels, Paola Giuliano, George E. Newman, Stefano Puntoni, and Lance J. Rips (2014), "Choice and Self: How Synchronic and Diachronic Identity Shape Choices and Decision Making," Marketing Letters, 25, 281-291.

Bartels, Daniel M., Trevor Kvaran, and Shaun Nichols (2013), "Selfless Giving," Cognition, 129, 392-403. Media: ♥

Burns, Zachary C., Eugene M. Caruso, and Daniel M. Bartels (2012), "Predicting Premeditation: Future Behavior is Seen as More Intentional than Past Behavior," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141, 227-232.

Robinson, Paul H., Sean E. Jackowitz and Daniel M. Bartels (2012), "Extralegal Punishment Factors: A Study of Forgiveness, Hardship, Good Deeds, Apology, Remorse, and Other Such Discretionary Factors in Assessing Criminal Punishment," Vanderbilt Law Review, 65, 737-826.

Bartels, Daniel M. and Oleg Urminsky (2011), "On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption," Journal of Consumer Research, 38, 182-198. Media: *, ||, ¶, ¶, #, ♠, ♦, ♦, ♣

Bartels, Daniel M. and David A. Pizarro (2011), "The Mismeasure of Morals: Antisocial Personality Traits Predict Utilitarian Responses to Moral Dilemmas," Cognition, 121, 154-161. Media: †, †, §, ♦, ♦

Bartels, Daniel M. and Russell C. Burnett (2011), "A Group Construal Account of Drop-in-the-Bucket Thinking in Policy Preference and Moral Judgment," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 50-57.

Bartels, Daniel M. and Lance J. Rips (2010), "Psychological Connectedness and Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 49-69.

Bennis, Will M., Douglas L. Medin, and Daniel M. Bartels (2010), "The Costs and Benefits of Calculation and Moral Rules," Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 187-202.

Bennis, Will M., Douglas L. Medin, and Daniel M. Bartels (2010), "Perspectives on the Ecology of Decision Modes: Reply to Comments," Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 213-215.

Robinson, Paul H., Michael T. Cahill, and Daniel M. Bartels (2010), "Competing Theories of Blackmail: An Empirical Research Critique of Criminal Law Theory," Texas Law Review, 89, 291-532. Media: *

Iliev, Rumen, Sonya Sachdeva, Daniel M. Bartels, Craig M. Joseph, Satoru Suzuki, and Douglas L. Medin (2009), "Attending to Moral Values, In Daniel M. Bartels, Christopher W. Bauman, Linda J. Skitka, and Douglas L. Medin (Eds.) Moral Judgment and Decision Making: The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol 50. San Diego: Elsevier, 169-190.

Bartels, Daniel M. (2008), "Principled Moral Sentiment and the Flexibility of Moral Judgment and Decision Making," Cognition, 108, 381-417.

Day, Samuel B. and Daniel M. Bartels (2008), "Representation over Time: The Effects of Temporal Distance on Similarity," Cognition, 106, 1504-1513.

Bartels, Daniel M. and Douglas L. Medin (2007), "Are Morally-Motivated Decision Makers Insensitive to the Consequences of their Choices?," Psychological Science, 18, 24-28. Media: ♣

Bartels, Daniel M. (2006), "Proportion Dominance: The Generality and Variability of Favoring Relative Savings over Absolute Savings," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 100, 76-95.

Bloomfield, Amber, Josh Sager, Daniel M. Bartels, and Douglas L. Medin (2006), "Caring about Framing Effects," Mind and Society, 5, 1504-1513.

Jameson, Jason T., Dedre Gentner, Samuel B. Day, Stella Christie, Julie Colhoun, and Daniel M. Bartels (2005), "Clarifying the Role of Alignability in Similarity Comparisons," Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci2005. Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum.

Media key: * New York Times, † The Economist, ‡ The Atlantic, § Wall Street Journal, || Time, ¶ US News and World Report, # Money Magazine, ♠ Chicago Tribune, ♥ Scientific American; ♦ Psychology Today, ♣ Boston Globe

Books

Bartels, Daniel M., Christopher W. Bauman, Linda J. Skitka, and Douglas L. Medin, Eds. (2009), "Moral Judgment and Decision Making: The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 50," San Diego: Elsevier

Projects in Various Stages of Development

With Nicholas R. Herzog and Abigail B. Sussman (in revision), “Anchors or Targets? An Examination of Focal Values on Credit Card Statements.”

With Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb and Eric J. Johnson (in preparation), “More than Money Over Time: Consumers’ Intertemporal Preferences for Money, Health and Getting Things Done.”

With Nicholas R. Herzog (in preparation), “Memory Errors in Tracking Account Balances”

With Alexander K. Moore and Jordyn Schor (under review), “The Determinants of (Un)Acceptable Privacy Behaviors by Organizations”

With Nicholas R. Herzog and Abigail B. Sussman (in preparation), “Distinguishing between anchors and targets.”

With Justin F. Landy and Daniel K. Walco (in preparation), "It’s Complicated: Unpredicted Context and Content Effects Reveal Gaps in Our Understanding of Moral Judgment."

With Yonatan Vanunu and Oleg Urminsky (in preparation), “Coping with Complexity: A Selective Sampling Account of Consideration Set Formation for Product Bundles.”

With Daniel Katz (in preparation), “The Influence of Mean Product Ratings on Review Judgments and Search.”

With Alexander K. Moore (in preparation), “Navigation In Price Search: How Variance And Search Costs Impact Where And In What Order Consumers Choose To Shop.”

With Sarah Molouki and Oleg Urminsky (in preparation), “Neglecting Decline: Remembered and Predicted Personal Development Diverge from Actual Longitudinal Change.”

Teaching

Graduate

Consumer Behavior (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

—Full-time MBA, Evening MBA, Weekend MBA

Behavioral Economics and Decision Making (Columbia Business School)

—Daytime MBA, Executive MBA, Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA

Cognitive Underpinnings of Decisions (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

—Ph.D Program

Information Processing in Consumer Behavior (Columbia Business School)

—Ph.D Program

Advanced Marketing Theory: Behavioral Science Approach (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

—Ph.D Program

Marketing Literature Seminar (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

—Ph.D Program

Undergraduate

The Psychology of Decision Making (Northwestern University)

Service