My Research

I am currently a fifth-year graduate student in social psychology at Princeton University. My research focuses on social judgment and decision-making. I examine how choice difficulty impacts the inferences people make about their own or other people’s preferences, how comparison standards and other contextual factors impact people’s judgments and preferences, and how actors and observers come to differ in the judgments and choices they make.

Publications

Steffel, M., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2009). Happy by what standard? The role of intrapersonal and interpersonal comparison standards in ratings of happiness. Social Indicators Research, 92, 69-80.

Pronin, E., Fleming, J., & Steffel, M. (2008). Value revelations: Disclosure is in the eye of the beholder. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 795-809.

Johnson, E. J., Steffel, M., & Goldstein, D. (2005). Making better decisions: From measuring to constructing preferences. Health Psychology, 24(4 Suppl), S17-22.

Elkin, E. B., Cowen, M. E., Cahill, D., Steffel, M. & Kattan, M.W. (2004). Preference assessment method affects decision analytic recommendations: A prostate cancer treatment example. Medical Decision Making, 24, 504-510.

In Preparation

Steffel, M., & Oppenheimer, D. M. Actor-observer differences in preferences inferred from choices.

Steffel, M., & Shafir, E. Decision conflict as a heuristic for predicting consensus.

Steffel, M., & Prentice, D. Impact of decision roles on information search.

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