EEI people

Francisco’s research interests lie in judgment and decision-making, pricing, and prosocial behavior. For instance, one of his ongoing projects explores the influence of individuals’ sense of self-identity on their responses to various pricing strategies employed by firms. In other work, he investigates choice architecture in charity fundraising contexts.

Before starting his PhD, Francisco earned an MPhil in Strategy, Marketing and Operations from Cambridge Judge Business School and a BA in International Business from Rollins College.

Lisa-Maria is a member of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy network as part of the Policy Fellowships Programme, which is dedicated to helping senior policymakers in harnessing the effective use of evidence and expertise to inform government decision-making.

Through her doctoral research, Lisa-Maria aims to understand how political psychology and behavioural economics can inform the development of interventions helping senior political elites to take decisive climate action.

Prior to undertaking her PhD, she joined the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication where her research focused on the communication of evidence and uncertainty in a variety of domains from policy interventions to healthcare and the legal sector. Her study as first author showed the influence of political elites on COVID-19 risk perception and hoax beliefs in the US, and is published in the Royal Society Open Science Journal.

She was previously research assistant at the London School of Economics Behavioural Research Lab, where she worked on interventions to recalibrate risk perception and reduce biases. As a behavioural consultant at Innovia Tech, she worked to develop interventions improving safety, patients’ risk perception and adherence behaviour to medication.

Lisa-Maria completed an MSc Cognitive and Decision Science and a BSc in Arts and Sciences at UCL. She explored decision-making processes at complementary cognitive, behavioural, and political scales with an interdisciplinary combination of data analysis, experimental methods, and computer programming.

Her research interests also include social and political decision-making, social conflicts and cooperation, voting behaviour, and immunising citizens against misinformation.

PhD project overview

“Parliament is not an ordinary organisation, because on a day-to-day level it has the power to profoundly affect the lives of millions of people, and so behaviour within it may be disproportionately important.”
Kwiatkowski, R. (2001) Politicians and power.” In: The psychology of politicians [Internet]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.39–58

“My PhD research aims to examine the factors that influence Members of Parliament in taking decisive climate action.

“In the context of climate change, the beliefs and decisions of Members of Parliament have the potential to tip the scales among collective actors. The possible significant impact of Members of Parliament lies in their ability to shape emission reduction through the implementation of green policies, legislative changes, agenda-setting, and the influential effect of political elite cues on the public.

“I argue that coupling individual behavioural change with proactive top-down actions within government leadership is crucial to scale up and enhance the effectiveness of behavioural interventions. The existing structural research looking at high-level political and economic responses, often invokes notions of impersonal omnipotent systems, global agreements, and abstract international power relations, leaving out of the picture the individual political leaders responsible for these wider-scale dynamics.

“Employing a metaphorical lens glimpsing through the walls of structural-level institutions to focus on the politician behind policy decisions, could offer a promising avenue for sustainability behavioural research. Moreover, this lens could provide a more nuanced perspective transcending the confines of a dualistic I-frame versus S-frame approach, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate interplay between individual agency and structural influences. My research therefore addresses these aforementioned gaps in the literature by empirically examining the factors that influence senior political elites in taking decisive climate action, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data.

“The first part of my thesis is focused on developing a conceptual model of the relationship between MPs’ second-order beliefs and climate action, and understanding key barriers and facilitators to senior decision-makers’ preparedness to take climate action.

“Specifically, I am conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with former Members of Parliament to examine the types of evidence, including opinion polls, that significantly influence policy choices within parliament, as well as Members of Parliament’s perceptions of climate policies.

“The subsequent phase of my doctoral research involves conducting several online experiments with a sample of Members of Parliament across Conservative, Liberal Democrats, and Labour parties in the UK, aiming to test the effectiveness of various interventions on climate policy support. A multitude of factors are posited to be constraining politicians from taking stronger and more rapid climate action, many of which appear particularly difficult to address (eg distributed agency across rigid bureaucratic layers, competing policy priorities in the context of the cost-of-living crisis). While many of these barriers to climate action are very difficult to alter, my research focuses on targeting specific barriers over which leverage is promising, informed by behavioural insights.”

A bit more about me

My favourite place in Cambridge

“My favourite place in Cambridge is the Botanic Garden, especially getting lost in the peaceful glasshouse.”

My favourite spot for lunch breaks

“My favourite spot for lunch breaks is The Tiffin Truck near Downing College, which offers the perfect warming food for these cold English days.”

My book recommendation

“My book recommendation is ‘Empire of the Ants’ by Bernard Werber, a wonderful combination of science fiction, and philosophical reflection, exploring ideas of ecology, advanced technology, and the intricate connections between all living organisms. This book is particularly relevant to the current climate crisis we are facing.”

Noah’s research lies at the intersection of sociology and behavioural economics. Noah investigates the interplay between social mobility – a core theme in sociology – and personality traits increasingly studied in economics. Do individuals strategically adopt patience and balanced risk-taking to climb the economic ladder? How does the experience of socioeconomic success shape personality traits? These questions revolve around and reassess the influential notion that positive life outcomes depend on the ‘right’ character. By adopting a sociological perspective, Noah critically engages with popular narratives of meritocracy, that is, the idea that hard work and talent enable people to get ahead in life. Noah’s research examines how meritocracy is used to legitimate power imbalances and how individuals come to accept their position in the socioeconomic pecking order.

Interdisciplinary in nature, Noah’s research frequently turns to art, literary fiction and poetry for motivation and utilises both quantitative and qualitative methods. Noah is also interested in broader aspects of interdisciplinarity and the history of economic and social thought.

His research interests include behavioural economics; behavioural public policy; cultural sociology; economic sociology; inequality; social mobility; survey methodology.

PhD project overview

“My research scrutinises ideas behind the persistence of social and economic disadvantage. After the shock of the first world war, the unequal distribution of income and wealth between different groups of society began to decrease in western countries. However, since the late 1970s, income and wealth disparities have risen again, reaching levels last seen in the early 20th century. Despite high inequality across the globe, governments and international organisations extol the promise of social mobility: each generation is meant to enjoy higher incomes and better standards of living than previous cohorts. Yet the cost-of-living crisis, ballooning rents in urban areas, and exploding mortgage rates illustrate that many people struggle to experience economic improvement. In the meantime, top earners and affluent individuals continue to accumulate growing shares of countries’ total income and wealth. Amid persistently high disparities between and within nations, equal opportunities for everyone remain elusive. Individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds face a cycle of reproduction: the misfortunes of one generation haunt the next. Hard work and talent are not enough to overcome unfavourable starting positions.

“Yet hard work and talent have long been hailed as stepping stones to success. The promise of the American dream maintains that people can tackle structural barriers if they harness effort and natural ability. This tale can legitimise inequality: Because people are expected to achieve their goals by leveraging individual capacities, any remaining inequalities result from a lack of motivation. Individuals’ ambitions and character traits – rather than systemic preconditions – determine future outcomes, or so the story goes.

“This emphasis on innate faculties corresponds with the rise of behavioural science, notably psychology. Since the 1970s, economists and psychologists have used laboratory experiments to show that people’s cognitive capabilities are limited. Risky situations and insufficient information can lead individuals to make erroneous judgements and decisions. This insight inspired scholars to question the assumption that humans process information like computers. Acknowledging the fallibility of people’s brains, economists, regulatory experts, and psychologists began to design small interventions, or ‘nudges’, to help people make better choices. By raising people’s attention, reminding them of downstream consequences, or utilising individuals’ tendency to stick with the default, nudges use insights from psychology to circumvent the boundaries of cognitive reasoning.

“The influence of psychology in understanding and shaping people’s life outcomes has also inspired social policy. Economists have trialled interventions to teach people how to practice patience and soft skills as early as in pre-school. Other researchers have demonstrated that connections to more advantaged peers can improve young people’s achievements in later life. These findings underscore that success in the market society requires citizens to master coveted traits such as patience, risk-taking, and social skills.

“My doctoral research analyses the role of behavioural science in promoting this narrative. The first part of my thesis argues that psychological knowledge provides an insufficient lens for understanding the persistence of economic inequality. I illustrate that people’s tendency to live in the moment assumes different moral meanings, depending on the social class we look at.

“My thesis’ second part examines how the tale of self-made achievement justifies power imbalances and how individuals come to accept their station in the economic pecking order. Existing research maintains that segregation across economic and racial lines hinders people from grasping the sheer extent of inequality. To rally against disparities, communities need to realise their own advantage, or disadvantage. I develop an alternative stance, arguing that increased visibility of wealth leads less fortunate people to accept privilege as the just status quo. I put competing theories to the test by using international survey data and measures of globalisation.

“Reflecting upon these findings, the final part of my thesis discusses the limits of behavioural science in redressing economic inequalities. I also address the potentials and pitfalls of incorporating knowledge from disparate academic fields. This assessment critically engages with my own approach, which fuses insights from behavioural science, sociology as well as art history and literary fiction.”

A bit more about me

My favourite place in Cambridge

“As an inequality researcher, I am cynically enthralled by London, so my favourite place in Cambridge must be the city’s train station, a gateway to Britain’s capital. Alas, I get down to London less often than I would like to and have tried to come to terms with Cambridge’s university bubble. My favourite place here is the Fitzwilliam Museum.”

My favourite spot for lunch breaks

“Queens’ College because the food is very affordable.”

My book recommendation

“I have recently finished W G Sebald’s ‘Austerlitz’. Fusing travelogue, autobiographical notes and the life story of a child refugee who escaped to Britain on the Kindertransport, the book unearths the unassailable depths of human trauma. Unfortunately, this subject will never lose its relevance.”

Emmanuel’s research looks at the rise of behavioural science in modern politics (eg the nudge) and seeks to unravel its ambition in terms of a politics of the unconscious. More largely, it claims that the discovery of the unconscious, at the outset of the 19th century, has made possible a new rationality of government: that of psychopolitics. This new form of politics is to be found in the emergence of neo-liberalism around Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays and later in more advanced forms, of which behavioural science is one successful expression.

PhD project overview

“My PhD research takes the idea of irrationality seriously and makes the claim that irrational passions are at the foundation of the thinking on and the doing of politics. I argue that the problem of politics, namely the question of why it is that there is politics, boils down to a problem of human emotions and passions. The argument rests on psychological realism. Politics is necessary because of the excess and abuse of the mind. The argument builds on classical works of political theory, notably Hobbes, Rousseau, and others who in their distinct understandings of human nature all agree on the basic premise that individuals are mostly irrational, swayed by ardent affects, and that if passions are left untouched and untamed violence soon inflamed society. There is thus a need for politics to govern passions. And this need is justified by the pervasiveness of passions. Indeed, I contend further that passions are an unavoidable outgrowth of civilisation, which through the material abundance and comfort it produces frees people from the shackles of necessity and pure survival. Yet liberation from necessity is not a guarantee of peace — because, as desires and passions become the main drivers of human action, they bring with them a menace for society, one that seems at first benign and innocent. This menace is the effect of pride or egoism, the love of oneself above all else, which makes those afflicted by it crave absolute authority regardless of the exploitation and destruction it might imply for those who stand in the way of power. Passion has at this point turned into madness. This is when and why politics is deemed necessary. Politics and its institutions are invented to protect society from the unruliness, if not destructiveness of unchecked passions. Politics is therefore about psychopolitics. Its mission is to govern the mind. Its goal is to regulate the mental affliction which civilisation provokes. Hence, politics is not primarily about morality, nor is it primarily about economics. It is foremost about psychology. There is a reason for politics and this reason is justified by the unreason that lies within us.

“If psychopolitics is needed, then the next question should be: how does psychopolitics work? It is to that second question that the rest of my research is devoted. Various maxims of politics have been proposed to ensure that politics can secure obedience and guarantee the peace of the community. Distinct reasons of state have been promoted, which all take the problem of politics to be about passions and the solution to also be within passions. As the motto goes, ‘fire can only be fought with fire’. In short, two intellectual traditions have opposed each other on what type of passions politics should embody to prevent the violence of pride. The first considers fear and terror to be the supreme principle of government; this is the more Hobbesian tradition. The second holds love and compassion to be that supreme maxim; this is the more Rousseauist tradition. One seeks to crush and deter. The other wants to attract and seduce. Working through the modern lessons of psychology, I seek to show the psychological limits of any of those two approaches, demonstrating why pure fear leads to submission but quickly enough to resentment and the desire for rebellion, and why passive love leads to conformism but quickly enough to boredom and the desire for change. Both run the risk of making politics the cause and not the response to the problem of passions. They are both insufficient and short-term formulas to create peace. This is where I engage more normatively with the dissertation as I suggest that psychopolitics should be about governing human passions in an ambivalent format, namely through a harmonious combination of both discipline and love in order to upset some desires but also liberate and transform others into a productive spirit that is beneficial for the common good. This exercise is difficult and asks for citizens to amass experience with politics within the framework of democracy. All in all, this dissertation hopes to have contributed to explaining why it is that politics relates so innately to passions, and how it is that passions can be governed by politics. In doing so, it hopes to have made the case that psychology is at the heart of the thinking of politics, and that it has been so from the very start of the discipline. The idea of psychopolitics, that is the pairing of politics and psychology, is indeed more ancient than what we may conventionally think.”

A bit more about me

“Not yet (if ever) a political thinker, I would like to think of myself as a political rethinker eager to shake off some of the rigidity and frigidity which often conditions the course of disciplinary thinking. This intellectual rethinking I hope to do across my dissertation by bringing depth-psychology, notably concepts and concerns from psychoanalysis in dialogue with politics and political theory.

“I am a keen reader and writer of poetry, and have strong affiliations with the Foodbank and other active societies.

“I also speak French, German, and mumble some street-level rudiments of Spanish and Arabic (Egyptian).

My favourite place in Cambridge

“Mill Road, especially its first stretch prior to the railway bridge. The street is always alive and full of small convenience stores open from early morning to very late in the evening. They have the best vegetables in town, and especially the most colourful spices. There is also a café there, called the Mediterranean Coffee Spot, run by a wonderful Greek family. On a cold Saturday morning, there is nothing more uplifting than to start the day with a cappuccino, a pistachio baklava, and a warm hellenic welcome.”

My favourite place in Cambridge

“I like to eat something light, like a salad in the back-garden of Emmanuel College, known here as the paddock. Members of the College are lucky to have a pond, towering trees all around, and superb flowerbeds curated by a team of talented gardeners. Right at the heart of the city, one feels then immediately transported into the serenity of the English countryside. The sporadic sight of squirrels playing in the far distance adds life and amusement to the picturesque scene.”

My book recommendation

“I have a particular fondness for classics, however dusty their covers. In that spirit, I recommend ‘Civilisation and Its Discontents’ by Sigmund Freud. One should certainly overlook the sexual obstination of its author and change sexual urges to simply desires and wishes. But, after this small reading edit, a thought-provoking idea unfolds, namely that society produces more wishes than that which it can satisfy and deliver, especially if society wants to preserve some level of order. Modern individuals are then left with a residual malaise, a form of discontent, which lingers in the back of their mind until it eventually bursts in a rather disruptive fashion. It is one of the first and best plea for taking the psyche seriously not simply at the individual level but also at the collective level. And as everyone knows here at the El-Erian Institute, the mind is indeed the first and most important territory of the common good.”