Imagine you could lie for $100 — and no one would ever know
Would you do it? A new study reveals how a single promise can tilt the scales toward honesty.
Hallgeir Sjåstad is a Professor of Psychology and Leadership at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Department of Strategy and Management. He is also an affiliated researcher at FAIR (NHH) and the Center for Conflict and Cooperation at New York University.
In his research, Sjåstad studies how people make decisions, interact in social life, and think about the future. By combining perspectives from social psychology, decision-making research (JDM) and behavioral economics, he uses both large-scale experiments and global survey methods in his work. Sjåstad is an active researcher in the international community of psychology and social science, and has published his research in leading academic journals across different fields.
Sjåstad is also a frequently invited public speaker, giving research-based talks on how to improve our decision-making, critical thinking, pursue the good life (happiness and meaning), build a culture of trust and cooperation in groups and societies, and show true leadership by focusing on the future and creating a broader sense of “us”. At NHH, Sjåstad teaches psychology and leadership, research methods, and happiness research.
Background:
Hallgeir Sjåstad is a clinical psychologist by training (Cand.psychol. six-year degree), holding an Advanced Master of Science degree from the University of Bergen (2012). He received his PhD degree in psychology and decision science from NHH in 2017. After working one year as a postdoc at NHH and two years as assistant professor in psychology and behavioral economics in the FAIR Insight Team (SNF), he returned to the strategy department at NHH as associate professor in 2020. In 2022, Sjåstad was promoted to full professor at the age of 36, only 5 years after he defended his PhD.
Would you do it? A new study reveals how a single promise can tilt the scales toward honesty.
Individuals who identified more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Associate Professor Hallgeir Sjåstad investigates the “sour-grape effect”
New working paper by Katrine Nødtvedt, Hallgeir Sjåstad (FAIR Insight Team), Siv Skard, Helge Thorbjørnsen and Jay Van Bavel: “Racial bias in the sharing economy and the role of trust”.
Can nudging become the solution to the greatest challenges of our time such as economic inequality and climate change?
New published paper in Psychology of Consciousness by Roy Baumeister (University of Queensland/Florida State University), Heather Maranges (Florida State University) and Hallgeir Sjåstad (FAIR Insight Team/SNF): «Consciousness of the Future as a Matrix of Maybe: Pragmatic Prospection and the Simulation of Alternative Possibilities.»
New paper published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: “The Future and the Will: Planning requires self-control, and ego depletion leads to planning aversion”, by Hallgeir Sjåstad (postdoc at NHH/FAIR) and Roy Baumeister (Florida State University).
If you fail to keep your New Year’s resolution to work out three times a week already in the first week of the year, that does not make it even more important for you to reach this goal. The opposite is the case.