Cristina Bicchieri

Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics
Professor of Philosophy and Psychology; Professor of Legal Studies, Wharton School; Head, Behavioral Ethics Lab; Director, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program; Director, Master of Behavioral and Decision Sciences

Laurea, Philosophy, Universita di Milano;

Ph.D. in Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University

Office Location: 
Claudia Cohen Hall, Room 433 249 S. 36th Street Philadelphia PA 19104-6304
Phone: 
215-898-8563
Research Interests: 

Decision Processes

Social and Cultural Psychology

 
Specific Research Areas: 

Social norms, prosocial behavior

Research Synopsis:

My intellectual affinities lie at the border between philosophy, game theory and psychology. My primary research focus is on judgment and decision making with special interest in decisions about fairness, trust, and cooperation, and how expectations affect behavior. A second research focus examines the evolution of social norms, especially norms of fairness and cooperation. A third, earlier research focus has been the epistemic foundations of game theory and how changes in information affects rational choices and solutions.

Appointments: 

Philosophy Department; Psychology Graduate Group; Legal Studies (Wharton)

Selected Publications: 

“Shrieking Sirens: Schemata, Scripts, and Social Norms: How Change Occurs” (with P. McNally). Social Philosophy & Policy, Volume 35, Number 1 (Spring 2018)

“Determinants of Corruption: A Socio-psychological Analysis” (with D. Ganegonda), in P. Nichols and D. Robertson (eds.), Thinking About Bribery, Neuroscience, Moral Cognition and the Psychology of Bribery. Cambridge University Press, 2016

“Can Trust facilitate Bribery? Experimental evidence from China, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands” (with T. Jiang and J. Lindemans), Social Cognition, 33: 483-504, 2015

“I’m So Angry I Could Help You: Moral Outrage as a Driver of Victim Compensation” (with E. Thulin), Social Philosophy and Policy, 32 (2) 2015

“Game Theory” (with G. Sillari), Philosophy of Science Handbook, Oxford University Press, 2015

"A Structured Approach to the Diagnostic of Collective Practices" (with J. Lindemans and T. Jiang), Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 5, December 1014

“Social Epistemology: Some Personal Reflections” in V. Hendricks and D. Pritchard (eds.) Social Epistemology: 5 Questions, Automatic Press, VIP 2014. Reprinted in Socio-Epistemic Phenomena: 5 Questions. Vincent F. Hendricks & Rasmus K. Rendsvig (eds) Automatic Press, VIP 2015

“Fairness Norms and Theory of Mind in an Ultimatum Game: Judgments, Offers, and Decisions in School-Aged Children." (with I. Castelli et al.), PlosOne, August 2014

“I cannot cheat you after we talk” (with A. Sontuoso) in M. Peterson (ed.) The Prisoner’s Dilemma, Cambridge University Press, 2014

“Norms and beliefs: How change occurs” (with H. Mercier), Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 63, 2014. Reprinted in B. Edmonds (ed.) The Complexity of Social Norms. Springer 2014

“On the Emergence of Descriptive Norms", (with R. Muldoon, S. Hartmann, C. Lisciandra and J. Sprenger), Politics, Philosophy and Economics, 13 (1): 3-22, 2014

“Norms, Conventions and the Power of Expectations” in N. Cartwright (ed.) Philosophy of Social   Science, Oxford University Press, 2014

“Is participation contagious? Evidence from a household vector control campaign in urban Peru” (with A. Buttenheim et al.) Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, September 2013

“Third-Party sanctioning and compensation behavior: Findings from the ultimatum game” (with A. Chavez), Journal of Economic Psychology 39, 2013: 268-277

“Norm manipulation, norm evasion: Experimental evidence” (with A. Chavez), Economics and Philosophy 29, 2013: 175–198

“Self-serving Biases and Public Justification in Trust games” (with H. Mercier), Synthese 190, 5, 2013:  909-922

“Words or Deeds? Choosing what to Know about Others” (with Erte Xiao), Synthese, 187 (1): 49-63, 2012

“An Embarrassment of Riches: Modeling Social Preferences in Ultimatum games”, (with. Jiji Zhang) in U. Maki (ed.) Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Volume 13: Philosophy of Economics, Elsevier 2012

Social Norms, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011

“Norms, Preferences and Conditional Behavior”, Politics, Philosophy and Economics 9(3): 297-313, 2010

"Studying the ethical implications of e-trust in the lab" (with Azi Lev-On), Ethics and Information Technology, 13 (1): 5-15, 2011

“Trusting is not a norm, but reciprocity is ”(with Erte Xiao and Ryan Muldoon), Politics, Philosophy and Economics,vol. 10, 2: 170-187, 2011

"Behaving as Expected: Public Information and Fairness Norms" (with Alex Chavez), Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 23 (2): 161-178, 2010.  Reprinted in Michael Baurmann / Geoffrey Brennan / Robert E. Goodin / Nicholas Southwood (editors): Norms and Values. The Role of Social Norms as Instruments of Value Realisation, Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden, 2010

“When Equality Trumps Reciprocity” (with Erte Xiao), Journal of Economic Psychology 31 (3): 456-470, 2010 

“The Medium or the Message? Communication Richness and Relevance in Trust games” (with Azi Lev-On and Alex Chavez), Synthese 176 (1): 125-147, 2010

“Group and Dyadic Communication in Trust Games.” (with Azi Lev-On and Alex Chavez), Rationality and Society, 22(1), 2010

“Do the right thing: but only if others do so” (with Erte Xiao), Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 22: 191-208, 2009

“Rationality and Indeterminacy”, in D. Ross and H. Kinkaid (eds.) The Handbook of Philosophy of Economics, The Oxford Reference Library of Philosophy, Oxford University Press 2009: 159-188.

“The Fragility of Fairness: An Experimental Investigation on the Conditional Status of Pro-social Norms”, Nous(Philosophical Issues 18 Interdisciplinary Core Philosophy), 227-246, 2008

“Computer-Mediated Communication and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: An Experimental Analysis” (with Azi Lev-On), Politics, Philosophy and Economics, vol.6:139-168, 2007

"Knowing and Supposing in Games of Perfect Information" (with Horacio Arlo-Costa). Studia Logica, Vol. 86, n.3: 353-373, 2007

“Game Theory: Some Personal Reflections," Game Theory 5 Questions, V. F. Hendricks and P. G. Hansen, eds, Automatic Press, 2007.

Advisee:

Jinyi Kuang [Psychology Graduate Student]