Overview
Profile summary
Qualifications:
Previous academic positions
- 2012-2020: Research Scientist --- Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
- 2017-2018: Research Scientist --- German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, Germany
- 2007-2012: Research Scientist --- Department of Organizational Behavior, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- Before 2007: positions at RUB, Bochum; University of Erfurt; Arizona State University, USA
Education
- PhD and diploma in psychology (RUB, Bochum, Germany)
- Studied psychology, philosophy, dramatic arts, and German language (RUB, Germany; Harvard University, USA)
- Drama instructor (Unna, Germany)
Research interests:
- Simple heuristics and decision making: I study descriptive and normative properties of structurally simple human decision heuristics in individual and social settings; also comparing them to standard and advanced techniques in statistics and machine learning. I investigate information search and cue use in human decision making. To reach these goals, I utilize experiments, computer simulations, and mathematical analysis.
- Serious games: I develop serious games to explore decision making in simulated environments, including board-games.
- Behavioral ethics and moral psychology: I investigate the power of interventions and institutions in distributive justice, cooperation, punishment, and interpersonal commitments.
- Crowdsourced online research: I investigate the dynamics, possibilities, and problems of crowdsourced online research. This theme encompasses several subprojects and includes the qualitative and quantitative assessment of insufficient effort responding, and an analysis of professional participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk and comparable platforms. I also focus on questions of Big Data methods, Big Data Ethics and, in particular, Data Privacy for crowdsourced participants.
- Economic psychology and investment decisions: I study investment decisions and decision policies used by naive and professional investors, and explore economic interactions in incentivized experiments.
- Computer simulations: Using agent-based simulation methods and techniques from artificial life, artificial intelligence, and evolutionary computation, I study social interaction, decision making, and the performance of heuristics and strategies.
- Interdisciplinary projects: I transfer methodologies between disciplines and dovetail approaches originating in psychology, philosophy, machine learning, and economics.
Media mentions
- The Economist: https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/27/when-rank-leads-to-rancour
- People Management: https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/voices/comment/why-ranking-staff-leads-to-destructive-competition
- IESE Insight: https://www.ieseinsight.com/doc.aspx?id=2143&idioma=2
Google scholar profile
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xTS1e48AAAAJ&hl=en
Artistic projects:
German drama workshop (Arizona State University, 2003), playwright
Roles on external bodies
Ad hoc reviewer
Academy of Management Discoveries; Economics and Philosophy; International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making; Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition; Journal of Behavioral Decision Making; Journal of Business Research; Journal of Cognition; Journal of Cognitive Psychology; Journal of Economic Psychology; Journal of Education for Business; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition; Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; Journal of Management & Organization; Journal of Mathematical Psychology; Learning & Instructions; MIT Sloan Management Review; Nature Human Behaviour; Philosophical Psychology; Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Scientific Reports; Strategy Science
Review editor
Frontiers in Psychology
Teaching interests
Research Interests
- decision making
- behavioral ethics
- serious games
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
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SDG 13 Climate Action
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- 1 Similar Profiles
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Research output
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Partisan differences in risk-taking in a simulated pandemic
Woike, J. K., Hafenbrädl, S., Kanngiesser, P. & Hertwig, R., 1 Apr 2026, In: Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. 39, 2, e70066.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Downloads (Pure) -
Translating predictive models into clinical practice: Fast-and-frugal trees for postoperative delirium using routine data
Wegwarth, O., Balzer, F., Boie, S. D., Gisa, N., Müller, A., Woike, J. K., Spies, C. D. & Giese, H., Dec 2026, In: Scientific Reports. 16, 1, 12731.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Downloads (Pure) -
Assessing physicians' agreement and the completeness of the decision aid ‘arriba Diabetes’: A cross-sectional study
Lindner, N., Hoffmann, M.-C., Haasenritter, J., Woike, J. K. & Donner-Banzhoff, N., 8 Jul 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: BMC Family Practice. 26, 218.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile10 Downloads (Pure) -
Can large language models help predict results from a complex behavioural science study?
Emotion Expression Collaboration, 25 Sept 2024, In: Royal Society Open Science. 11, 240682.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile41 Downloads (Pure) -
Children Sustain Cooperation in a Threshold Public-Goods Game Even When Seeing Others’ Outcomes
Kanngiesser, P., Sunderarajan, J., Hafenbrädl, S. & Woike, J. K., 19 Aug 2024, In: Psychological Science. 35, 10, p. 1094-1107 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile22 Downloads (Pure)
Datasets
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Comparing estimation strategies in real-world environments
Woike, J. K. (Creator) & Hertwig, R. (Creator), American Psychological Association, 2009
Dataset