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About Hengchen

I am an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations and of Behavioral Decision Making at UCLA Anderson School of Management. I am the co-director of the UCLA Nudge Unit, which develops and tests behavioral interventions aimed at improving patient outcomes and physician engagement. I am serving as a Senior Editor for Organization Science, a Research Economist at NBER, and an Invited Researcher at J-PAL North America.

I primarily use field experiments and observational data to study self-control and motivation.

From an intrapersonal perspective, I seek to understand how individuals navigate tradeoffs between long-term benefits and short-term gratification. In particular, I have focused on how fresh starts—moments that actually or psychologically separate people from the past—affect self-control and goal motivation. 

From an interpersonal perspective, I examine how others' behaviors, expectations, and goals shape individuals' motivation.

From a policy perspective, I devise interventions grounded in behavioral science and test their efficacy in the field. I also examine the psychological processes and contextual factors that explain when, why, and for whom interventions designed to motivate farsighted behaviors succeed or fail.

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