By understanding how decisions are shaped, we can create changes that make a real difference, e.g. for the climate and in healthcare. This is what a prominent, interdisciplinary research group at LiU is aiming for.
Daniel Västfjäll is a professor of cognitive psychology, the study of how we receive and respond to information. Gustav Tinghög is a professor of economics. Together with some twenty colleagues, they make up the JEDI lab (Judgement, Emotion, Decision and Intuition). They are pioneering in how they combine different scientific methods.
“Human behaviour is very complex. It can’t be understood by one method or approach,” says Daniel.
His research is about how emotions arise and affect us in everyday life and what makes us want to help others. Gustav Tinghög studies economic decision-making and focuses on priorities in the healthcare sector. It is important that those who make the decisions there receive the right support, to ensure that help to patients is as fair and effective as possible.
“Having to make a lot of difficult decisions is mentally exhausting and then there is a risk that you resort to simplifications. For example, we have seen that patients who meet a surgeon at the end of the working day are booked in for fewer operations. This is when the surgeon is more likely to fall into a routine and avoid big decisions,” says Gustav Tinghög.
We are constantly confronted with huge amounts of information and decisions. It is important to understand how this affects us.
“We want to help people live in a world where new crises are constantly emerging. To maintain both the individual’s mental health and world health,” says Daniel Västfjäll.
