Department of Psychology

Dr. Smith is accepting graduate students for Fall 2023.

Research Interests

• Social Psychology
• Judgment and decision making
• Wishful thinking
• Motivated reasoning
• Risk taking
• Anchoring effects

Broadly speaking, I am interested in factors that influence how people make judgments and decisions. I am a social psychologist so most of my research focuses on situational factors that affect people, but I am also interested in how personality characteristics interact with the situation. Although my research interests are quite broad, much of my current research has focused on aspects of motivated reasoning. For example, students are often overly optimistic about their chances of getting an A on an exam. Similarly, football fans are often overly optimistic that their team will win an upcoming game. My research has examined the consequences of these biased perceptions as well as techniques that might be used to help people make more accurate predictions about the future. For additional information about my research interests, you can see my web page.

Recently, I have also gotten very interested in open science, best practices in psychological research, and the replication crisis in psychology (and other areas). Many of the recent developments in scientific research have changed the way I conduct my own research (e.g., preregistering studies, posting materials and data; see my Open Science Framework profile page). Furthermore, I have started a number of projects aimed at replicating well-cited research in my areas of interest.

Education

• Ph.D., 2011, University of Iowa
• B.A., 2003, California State University, Fresno

Selected Publications

For a complete list of publications, see my curriculum vitae or my Google Scholar profile.

• Smith, A. R., & Marshall, L. D. (2017). Confidently biased: Comparisons with anchors bias estimates and increase confidence. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(3), 731-743. doi:10.1002/bdm.1996
• Windschitl, P. D., Smith, A. R., Scherer, A. M., & Suls, J. (2017). Risk it? Direct and collateral impacts of peers' verbal expressions about hazard likelihoods. Thinking & Reasoning, 23(3), 259-291. doi:10.1080/13546783.2017.1307785
• Smith, A. R., Rule, S., & Price, P. C. (2017). Sample size bias in retrospective estimates of average duration. Acta Psychologica, 17, 639-46. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.03.008
• Stuart, J. R., Windschitl, P. D., Smith, A. R., & Scherer, A. M. (2017). Behaving optimistically: How the (un)desirability of an outcome can bias people's preparations for it. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(1), 54-69. doi:10.1002/bdm.1918
• Smith, A. R., Ebert, E. E., & Broman-Fulks, J. J. (2016). The relationship between anxiety and risk taking is moderated by ambiguity. Personality and Individual Differences, 95, 40-44. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.02.018
• Smith, A. R., & Windschitl, P. D. (2015). Resisting anchoring effects: The roles of metric and mapping knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 43(7), 1071-1084. doi:10.3758/s13421-015-0524-4
• Price, P. C., Kimura, N. M., Smith, A. R., & Marshall, L. D. (2014). Sample size bias in judgments of perceptual averages. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(5), 1321-1331. doi:10.1037/a0036576
• Suls, J., Rose, J. P., Windschitl, P. D., & Smith, A. R. (2013). Optimism following a tornado disaster. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39, 691-702.
• Smith, A. R., Windschitl, P. D., & Bruchmann, K. (2013). Knowledge matters: Anchoring effects are moderated by knowledge level. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 97-108.
• Smith, A. R. & Windschitl, P. D. (2011). Biased calculations: Numeric anchors influence answers to math equations. Judgment and Decision Making, 6, 139-146.
• Smith, A. R. & Price, P. C. (2010). Sample size bias in the estimation of means. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17, 499-503.
• Windschitl, P. D., Smith, A. R., Rose, J. P., & Krizan, Z. (2010). The desirability bias in predictions: Going optimistic without leaving realism. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 111, 33-47.