Wändi Bruine de Bruin

Collaborating Professor, Engineering and Public Policy
Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Behavioral Science, University of Southern California

Bio

Wändi Bruine de Bruin is a Collaborating Professor in EPP and Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Behavioral Science at the University of Southern California (USC), where she leads the initiative on Behavioral Science and Policy. At USC, she is affiliated with the Price School of Public Policy, the Dornsife School’s Department of Psychology, the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, and the Center for Economic and Social Research.  Wändi’s research aims to understand and inform how people make decisions about their health, well-being, and environmental impacts. She also studies age differences in decision-making competence.  She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers on these topics, in journals targeting psychology, public policy, health, and environmental science. She is a Fellow of the Psychonomic Society, of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, and of the Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement (NETSPAR). She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Decision, Medical Decision Making, the Journal of Risk Research, and Psychology and Aging. She is co-leading a national USC survey that is tracking people’s risk perceptions and experiences associated with COVID-19.  Her research on age differences in decision making was recently covered by Psychology Today and the BBC World’s Why Factor. She has served on expert panels for the National Academy of Sciences on Communicating Science Effectively and for the Council of the Canadian Academies on Health Product Risk Communication.

Education

• Ph.D. Behavioral Decision Theory and Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, 1998
• M.S. Behavioral Decision Theory, Carnegie Mellon University, 1997
• M.S. Cognitive Psychology, Free University Amsterdam, 1993
• B.S. Psychology, Free University Amsterdam, 1989

Research Interests

Publications

Copies of my publications, including the ones below, can be requested by email.

1. Bruine de Bruin, W., & Bostrom, A. (2013). Assessing what to address in science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 14062-14068.
2. Bruine de Bruin, W., & Fischhoff, B. (2017). Eliciting probabilistic expectations: Collaborations between psychologists and economists. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114, 3297-3304.
3. Bruine de Bruin, W., van der Klaauw, W., van Rooij, M., Teppa, F., & de Vos, K. (2017). Measuring expectations of inflation: Effects of survey mode, wording, and opportunities to revise. Journal of Economic Psychology, 59, 45-58.
4. Bruine de Bruin, W., Lefevre, C.E., Taylor, A.L., Dessai, S., Fischhoff, B., & Kovats, S. (2016). Promoting protection against a threat that evokes positive affect: The case of heatwaves in the U.K. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22, 261-271.
5. Bruine de Bruin, W, & Morgan, M.G. (2019).  Reflections on an interdisciplinary collaboration to inform public understanding of climate change, mitigation, and impacts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116, 7676-7683.
6. Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A.M., & Fischhoff, B. (in press).  Decision-making competence: More than intelligence?  Current Directions in Psychological Science.
7. Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A.M., Galesic, M., & Vardavas, R. (2019). Reports of social circles’ and own vaccination behavior: A national longitudinal survey. Health Psychology, 38, 975-983.
8. Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A.M., & Strough, J. (2020). Age differences in reported social networks and well-being. Psychology and Aging, 35, 159-168.
9. Bruine de Bruin, W., Wallin, A., Parker, A.M., Strough, J. & Hanmer, J. (2017). Effects of anti- vs. pro-vaccine narratives on responses by recipients varying in numeracy: A cross-sectional survey-based experiment. Medical Decision Making, 37, 860-870.
10. Bruine de Bruin, W., & Wong-Parodi, G. (2014). The role of initial affective impressions in responses to educational communications: The case of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20, 126-135.