Craig R. M. McKenzie Professor Rady School of Management and Department of Psychology

9500 Gilman Drive - MC 0553 University of California, San Diego La Jolla CA 92093-0553 USA

tel: 858.534.3739 fax: 858.534.0745 cmckenzie at ucsd dot edu

I am a cognitive psychologist interested in inference, uncertainty, and choice. Most of my recent research explains errors people purportedly make in the laboratory by (a) adopting a different (usually Bayesian) normative approach to the task of interest and (b) taking into account the typical structure of the environment. I often find that "errors" are the result of people behaving as (qualitative) Bayesians who make reasonable assumptions about task parameters that reflect how the world usually works. I don't claim that people never make mistakes, only that people's behavior is much richer, more interesting -- and often more rational -- than usually depicted in the judgment and decision-making literature.

Selected recent publications:

• McKenzie, C. R. M., & Liersch, M. J. (2011). Misunderstanding savings growth: Implications for retirement savings behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 48, S1-S13. [pdf]
• Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2011). Levels of information: A framing hierarchy. In G. Keren (ed.), Perspectives on framing (pp. 35-63). Psychology Press - Taylor & Francis Group. [pdf]
• Nelson, J. D., McKenzie, C. R. M., Cottrell, G. W., & Sejnowski, T. J. (2010). Experience matters: Information acquisition optimizes probability gain. Psychological Science, 21, 960-969. [pdf]
• Schotter, E. R., Berry, R. W., McKenzie, C. R. M., & Rayner, K. (2010). Gaze bias: Selective encoding and liking effects. Visual Cognition, 18, 1113-1132. [pdf]
• Liersch, M. J., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2009). Duration neglect by numbers -- and its elimination by graphs. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 303-314. [pdf]
• McKenzie, C. R. M. (2009). Business and psychology: The growing trend of judgment and decision making. Rady Business Journal, 2, 16-22. [pdf]
• McKenzie, C. R. M., Liersch, M. J., & Yaniv, I. (2008). Overconfidence in interval estimates: What does expertise buy you? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 107, 179-191. [pdf]
• Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2008). Framing effects and rationality. In N. Chater & M. Oaksford (Eds.), The probabilistic mind: Prospects for Bayesian cognitive science (pp. 79-96). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [pdf]
• McKenzie, C. R. M., & Mikkelsen, L. A. (2007). A Bayesian view of covariation assessment. Cognitive Psychology, 54, 33-61. [pdf]
• Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2006). Information leakage from logically equivalent frames. Cognition, 101, 467-494. [pdf]
• McKenzie, C. R. M., Liersch, M. J., & Finkelstein, S. R. (2006). Recommendations implicit in policy defaults. Psychological Science, 17, 414-420. [pdf]

curriculum vitae



Psychology Courses

Psychology 105: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology (Spring 2012) Syllabus Psychology 176: Creativity (Spring 2013) Syllabus / Slides / Final scores and grades Psychology 209: Topics in Judgment and Decision Making (Winter 2013) Reading List Psychology 237: Human Rationality (Spring 2005) Reading List

La Jolla Cove

Updated April 1, 2013