Mission of the Laboratory

Faculty Director: Kathleen Galotti
Olin G07/G09

Research in this laboratory centers around the issue of personally important and relevant decision-making.  We explore how people set goals, gather information, think about their options, create criteria to decide among options, prioritize those criteria, and weigh their options.  We also examine individual differences in decision-making--whether people have stylistic differences in their approach to decision-making.

Current Research Program

Consistency in Academic Decision-Making: A longitudinal study of college students' decision-making processes across academic, career, and social domains. 

This study, launched Fall 2009 and continuing through Fall 2011, examines two cohorts of first-year college students over the course of a year and a half. Our focus is on how consistent students are in their decision-making processes across multiple decisions in three domains and across time, and whether individual differences impact the decision-making process.

Previous Research Programs

Research projects that have been done in the past center around children's acquisition of reasoning and decision-making skills; examining other real-life decision-making episodes, investigating the devleopment of moral reasoning, and studying planning and goal setting in college students.

More information

To find out more information about Dr. Kathleen Galotti's research and published works, see her website. For a direct link to a list of her published articles, click here.