Jonathan Baron

Jonathan Baron
  • Professor of Psychology, Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    3720 Walnut Street
    Solomon Laboratories, Room C7
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Links: Personal Website

Research

  • Jonathan Baron, Barbara Mellers, Philip Tetlock, Eric Stone, Lyle Ungar (2015), Two Reasons to Make Aggregated Probability Forecasts More Extreme, Decision Analysis.
  • Jonathan Baron, Sydney Scott, Katrina Fincher, S. E. Metz (2015), Why Does the Cognitive Reflection Test (Sometimes) Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment (and Other Things)?, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
  • Barbara Mellers, Lyle Ungar, Jonathan Baron, Jaime Ramos, Burcu Gurcay, Katrina Fincher, Sydney Scott, Don Moore, Pavel Atanasov, Samuel Swift, Terry Murray, Eric Stone, Philip Tetlock (2014), Psychological Strategies for Winning a Geopolitical Forecasting Tournament, Psychological Science.
  • Burcu Gurcay, Barbara Mellers, Jonathan Baron (2014), The Power of Social Influence on Estimation Accuracy, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making,.
  • Barbara Mellers, Lyle Ungar, Jonathan Baron, Jaime Ramos, Burcu Gurcay, Katrina Fincher, Sydney Scott, Don Moore, Pavel Atanasov, Samuel Swift, Terry Murray, Eric Stone, Philip Tetlock (2014), Psychological Strategies for Winning Geopolitical Forecasting Tournaments, Psychological Science.
  • Min Gong, Jonathan Baron, Howard Kunreuther (Under Review), Why do Groups Cooperate More than Individuals to Reduce Risks. Abstract

    Previous research has discovered a curious phenomenon: groups cooperate less than individuals in a deterministic prisoner’s dilemma game but cooperate more than individuals when uncertainty is introduced into the game. We conduct two studies to examine three possible processes that may have driven groups to be more cooperative than individuals to reduce risks: group risk concern, group cooperation expectation, and social pressure. We find that ex-post guilt aversion and ex-post blame avoidance under uncertainty cause group members to be more risk concerned than individuals. This concern drives groups to choose the cooperation (and risk-reduction) strategy more frequently than individuals do. Groups also have higher cooperation expectations for the other group than individuals have for the other individual. We find no evidence of social pressure pushing groups to be nicer and more cooperative than individuals.

  • Min Gong, Jonathan Baron, Howard Kunreuther (2009), Group Cooperation under Uncertainty, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Volume 39, Number 3. Abstract

    Previous research has shown an ‘interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect’: intergroup interactions generally lead to less cooperative outcomes than interindividual interactions. We replicate the discontinuity effect in the deterministic prisoner’s dilemma, but find that groups are more cooperative than individuals in a stochastic version of the game. Three major factors that underlie the usual discontinuity effect are reduced in the stochastic environment: greed, fear, and persuasion power. Two group mechanisms are proposed to explain the reversed discontinuity effect: the motivation to avoid guilt and blame when making decisions that affect others’ welfare, and the social pressure to conform to certain norms when one is in a group setting.

Teaching

Past Courses

  • COGS3998 - Senior Thesis

    This course is a directed study intended for cognitive science majors who have been admitted to the cognitive science honors program. Upon admission into the program, students may register for this course under the direction of their thesis supervisor.

  • COGS3999 - Independent Study

    Departmental permission required

  • PSYC4998 - Mentored Research

    Mentored research involving data collection. Students do independent empirical work under the supervision of a faculty member, leading to a written paper. Normally taken in the junior or senior year.

  • PSYC4999 - Honors Mentored Research

    The Honors Program has been developed to recognize excellence in psychology among Penn undergraduates and to enhance skills related to psychological research. The 4998 credit signifies an Honors Independent Study, completed as part of the Honors Program. The honors program involves: (a) completing a year-long empirical research project in your senior year under the supervision of a faculty member (for a letter grade). This earns 2 cu's. (b) completing a second term of statistics (for a letter grade) before graduation. (c) participating in the year-long Senior Honors seminar (for a letter grade). This seminar is designed especially for Psychology Honors majors; this receives a total of 1 cu. (d) participating in the Undergraduate Psychology Research Fair in the Spring semester, at which honors students present a poster and give a 15-minute talk about their research. (e) a total of 15 cu's in psychology is required. Students will be selected to be part of the Honors Program in the Spring of their junior year (see application process online)

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Activity

Latest Research

Jonathan Baron, Barbara Mellers, Philip Tetlock, Eric Stone, Lyle Ungar (2015), Two Reasons to Make Aggregated Probability Forecasts More Extreme, Decision Analysis.
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In the News

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Knowledge @ Wharton - 2024/11/26
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