Thanks for stopping by!

I am a psychologist and researcher in the FAIR Insight Team at SNF/Norwegian School of Economics. For an overview of my research papers, please use the menu at the top.

About me

I am broadly interested in the psychology of decision-making, social life, and how people deal with the future. The central goal in my research program is to map out the causes and consequences of future-minded action, ranging from prediction and planning to pro-social behavior and morality. In related work, I study the psychology of happiness and meaning in life. To investigate these topics empirically , I employ large-scale experiments in various settings.

Core idea

As a guiding principle, I believe that both our decisions and our thoughts about the future are inherently social — serving interpersonal goals such as influence, cooperation and belonging. The human competence for social coordination has been a central driver of the evolutionary success of our species, and the rare ability to imagine a distant future has enabled further advancements in culture and society. Still, even among humans, our time perspective and the willingness to cooperate are limited and imperfect, and it varies systematically across time and situation. Thus, to understand the psychology of the individual, we must also understand the social world.

My own research is rooted in the field of social psychology, but I also incorporate insights from judgment and decision-making (JDM), behavioral economics, and evolutionary theory. It is the big questions that fascinates me, so I tend to care much more about good ideas and powerful methods than "local" differences between the disciplines. Across all the behavioral and social sciences, there is one question we all have in common: How do people make decisions?

Contact

I am fortunate to be doing most of my work in collaboration with terrific colleagues, mentors and students. If you should have any comments about my research, suggestions for future studies, or invitations for talks or public speaking, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail (hallgeir.sjastad@snf.no).