Thomas Schilling's
Research Website

Profile (ORCiD: 0000-0002-5150-612X)

Hi there! Thank you for your interest in learning more about me. 

I started my postdoc at the University of Trier (Germany) in May 2022 and am a postdoctoral fellow if the University of Zurich (Switzerland, remote). 

I got my PhD in behavioral science (economics) from the School of Economics and Finance at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. During my PhD, I have been funded as a scholar of the Chair in the Economics for Disasters and Climate Change and I have worked on research in the economics sub-discipline of behavioral insurance. 

Prior to beginning my PhD degree, I worked for several financial corporations in short-term positions such as assistant auditor (KPMG), portfolio management intern (Deutsche Bank), and project management intern (UBS), while working on or preparing for my university degrees in business administration (majoring in finance and minoring in accounting and economics). I graduated with a master’s degree from the University of Trier, Germany, and participated in fully-funded study abroad programs in the USA with scholarships (PROMOS and ISEP). My master’s thesis was a behavioral study on the susceptibility to framing effects by people who classify as thorough thinkers (as opposed to impulsive doers). 

I am also the data analyst, survey and experiment designer, and expert with regard to financial decision-making at Behavioural by Design, a young company that applies behavioral science for good. If you are looking for someone to help your company apply behavioral science to improve your clients' well-being, then please get in touch! 

Furthermore, I work on an online course in which I teach behavioral science (currently on hold). If you want to know more, please follow this link. The online course is still work-in-progress and only has about 25% of its content published. 

Research Interests

My research interest is behavioral science, a cross-research field of social psychology, cognitive psychology, and microeconomics. I focus on the psychological (i.e. emotional, intuitional, and “supposedly irrational”) aspects of human decision-making in various contexts. My research largely involves the association of people's personality with their decisions (personality economics) and an investigation of cognitive biases, heuristics, and how people make decisions and judge about decisions in different situations.  

Recently, I ventured into judgment and decision-making research in the broad field of artificial intelligence (AI). I am broadly interested in what factors influence people's trust in and acceptance of AI, and what affects their judgments of justice and fairness of these systems.

In my PhD research projects, I investigated empirically how and why people make insurance decisions. I used laboratory experiments and secondary (longitudinal survey) data to understand insurance decisions. With experimental data, I investigated home insurance decisions against catastrophes (natural disasters). With secondary data (SOEP), I investigated health insurance decisions. I used personality as predictors of insurance choices. I also studied how people's personality evolves, i.e. what factors affect the development of personality traits. 

My aim is to understand what factors drive decisions in various contexts and how we might be able to improve people's decisions to help people make better informed and more optimal decisions. 

Academic Education

Professional Qualifications

CV


CV (Google).pdf