Presentation

I investigate the interplay between intuition, reflection, and emotion in economic decision-making.

The conventional model of Homo Economicus is based on assumptions of selfish preferences where utility depends only on personal payoffs, and full rationality where people have complete self-control when making decisions. In the real world, however, the fact that people are bound by rationality (i.e. limited by cognitive and emotional abilities) is well established. People engage in behaviours to help others although this is costly, engage in unfavourable gambles and postpone costly events to enjoy benefits today.

Intuitive and reflective modes of thinking have been proposed to account for many of the anomalies observed in the real world. Kahneman (2011) proposed that people use two ways of thinking - intuition (“System 1”) and reflection (“System 2”), and our behaviour is a consequence of how these two systems interact. Although dual-process models of thinking have received much attention, knowledge is currently lacking on the circumstances under which decisions are driven by intuitive and reflective thinking, respectively. Few studies have conducted experiments that exogenously induce processing modes before people make incentivised decisions.

In my current research I seek to systematically fill this research gap by employing experimental manipulations to induce intuitive and reflective modes of thinking; The overall objective is to document how different modes of thinking influence basic economic decision-making that is central to understanding a wide variety of everyday decisions: 1) prosocial choices 2) risky choices 3) intertemporal choices and 4) moral judgements.

Applying a dual-process framework to economic decisions raises a series of questions that this project will seek to answer: Do individuals act more or less selfishly when making intuitive as opposed to reflective decisions? Do individuals become more or less risk averse when making intuitive decisions? Do individuals become more or less present-oriented when making intuitive decisions? What biological, psychological and neural factors at the individual level mediate observed behaviours?

Much of my previous (and ongoing) research has been applied to resource allocation in the context of health care. The technical and moral complexities involved in health care priority setting (at both bedside and policy level) mean that decision makers are likely to rely on heuristics or intuitive approaches to simplify the difficult decisions at hand. In this process, important information or values are likely to be ignored, contributing to decisions and policies that are likely to be both inefficient and unfair. In my research on health care priority setting I seek to put some empirical flesh on some of the economic and philosophical bones that form the basis for health policy. Thereby providing increased understanding of the fundamentals concerning the motivation and underlying psychological mechanisms of decision makers when balancing, when allocating resources. Such insight is essential if health-care policies are to be properly designed and implemented in order to achieve an appropriate balance between different values.

My research is funded by the Ragnar Söderbergs Fellowship, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation and the insurance company Länsförsäkringar.

Current research projects

  • Deciding, fast and slow: How intuitive and reflective thinking influence economic decision-making
  • Enhancing Individual, Organizational, and Societal Cooperation (ENCOOPER) 
  • Health care priority setting of orphan diseases 

Connect to Gustav at Researchgate

Brief facts

Education

  • Master of Science in Economics, Lund University 2004
  • PhD in Health Economics, Linköping University 2011 (Name of thesis: The art of saying no – the economics and ethics of health care rationing)

 

Teaching

In addition to supervising theses at different levels I currently teach the following undergraduate courses in economics:

  • Health economics and Ethics 
  • Behavioral Economics 
  • Microeconomic Analysis 

 

Network

  • JEDI Lab (Judgement, Emotion,Decision and Intuition Lab)
  • CSAN (Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience)
  • National Centre for Priority Setting in Health Care
  • Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health

Research

Publications

2023

Flavio Azevedo, Tomislav Pavlovic, Gabriel G. Rego, F. Ceren Ay, Biljana Gjoneska, Tom W. Etienne, Robert M. Ross, Philipp Schoenegger, Julian C. Riano-Moreno, Aleksandra Cichocka, Valerio Capraro, Luca Cian, Chiara Longoni, Ho Fai Chan, Jay J. Van Bavel, Hallgeir Sjastad, John B. Nezlek, Mark Alfano, Michele J. Gelfand, Michele D. Birtel, Aleksandra Cislak, Patricia L. Lockwood, Koen Abts, Elena Agadullina, John Jamir Benzon Aruta, Sahba Nomvula Besharati, Alexander Bor, Becky L. Choma, Charles David Crabtree, William A. Cunningham, Koustav De, Waqas Ejaz, Christian T. Elbaek, Andrej Findor, Daniel Flichtentrei, Renata Franc, June Gruber, Estrella Gualda, Yusaku Horiuchi, Toan Luu Duc Huynh, Agustin Ibanez, Mostak Ahamed Imran, Jacob Israelashvili, Katarzyna Jasko, Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, Andre Krouwel, Michael Laakasuo, Claus Lamm, Caroline Leygue, Ming-Jen Lin, Mohammad Sabbir Mansoor, Antoine Marie, Lewend Mayiwar, Honorata Mazepus, Cillian McHugh, John Paul Minda, Panagiotis Mitkidis, Andreas Olsson, Tobias Otterbring, Dominic J. Packer, Anat Perry, Michael Bang Petersen, Arathy Puthillam, Tobias Rothmund, Hernando Santamaria-Garcia, Petra C. Schmid, Drozdstoy Stoyanov, Shruti Tewari, Bojan Todosijevic, Manos Tsakiris, Hans H. Tung, Radu G. Umbres, Edmunds Vanags, Madalina Vlasceanu, Andrew Vonasch, Meltem Yucel, Yucheng Zhang, Mohcine Abad, Eli Adler, Narin Akrawi, Hamza Alaoui Mdarhri, Hanane Amara, David M. Amodio, Benedict G. Antazo, Matthew Apps, Mouhamadou Hady Ba, Sergio Barbosa, Brock Bastian, Anton Berg, Maria P. Bernal-Zarate, Michael Bernstein, Michal Bialek, Ennio Bilancini, Natalia Bogatyreva, Leonardo Boncinelli, Jonathan E. Booth, Sylvie Borau, Ondrej Buchel, C. Daryl Cameron, Chrissie F. Carvalho, Tatiana Celadin, Chiara Cerami, Hom Nath Chalise, Xiaojun Cheng, Kate Cockcroft, Jane Conway, Mateo Andres Cordoba-Delgado, Chiara Crespi, Marie Crouzevialle, Jo Cutler, Marzena Cypryanska, Justyna Dabrowska, Michael A. Daniels, Victoria H. Davis, Pamala N. Dayley, Sylvain Delouvee, Ognjan Denkovski, Guillaume Dezecache, Nathan A. Dhaliwal, Alelie B. Diato, Roberto Di Paolo, Marianna Drosinou, Uwe Dulleck, Janis Ekmanis, Arhan S. Ertan, Hapsa Hossain Farhana, Fahima Farkhari, Harry Farmer, Ali Fenwick, Kristijan Fidanovski, Terry Flew, Shona Fraser, Raymond Boadi Frempong, Jonathan A. Fugelsang, Jessica Gale, E. Begona Garcia-Navarro, Prasad Garladinne, Oussama Ghajjou, Theofilos Gkinopoulos, Kurt Gray, Siobhan M. Griffin, Bjarki Gronfeldt, Mert Guemren, Ranju Lama Gurung, Eran Halperin, Elizabeth Harris, Volo Herzon, Matej Hruska, Guanxiong Huang, Matthias F. C. Hudecek, Ozan Isler, Simon Jangard, Frederik J. Jorgensen, Frank Kachanoff, John Kahn, Apsara Katuwal Dangol, Oleksandra Keudel, Lina Koppel, Mika Koverola, Emily Kubin, Anton Kunnari, Yordan Kutiyski, Oscar Moreda Laguna, Josh Leota, Eva Lermer, Jonathan Levy, Neil Levy, Chunyun Li, Elizabeth U. Long, Marina Maglic, Darragh McCashin, Alexander L. Metcalf, Igor Miklousic, Soulaimane El Mimouni, Asako Miura, Juliana Molina-Paredes, Cesar Monroy-Fonseca, Elena Morales-Marente, David Moreau, Rafal Muda, Annalisa Myer, Kyle Nash, Tarik Nesh-Nash, Jonas P. Nitschke, Matthew S. Nurse, Yohsuke Ohtsubo, Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello, Cathal OMadagain, Michal Onderco, M. Soledad Palacios-Galvez, Jussi Palomoeki, Yafeng Pan, Zsofia Papp, Philip Paernamets, Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, Zoran Pavlovic, Cesar Payan-Gomez, Silva Perander, Michael Mark Pitman, Rajib Prasad, Joanna Pyrkosz-Pacyna, Steve Rathje, Ali Raza, Kasey Rhee, Claire E. Robertson, Ivan Rodriguez-Pascual, Teemu Saikkonen, Octavio Salvador-Ginez, Gaia C. Santi, Natalia Santiago-Tovar, David Savage, Julian A. Scheffer, David T. Schultner, Enid M. Schutte, Andy Scott, Madhavi Sharma, Pujan Sharma, Ahmed Skali, David Stadelmann, Clara Alexandra Stafford, Dragan Stanojevic, Anna Stefaniak, Anni Sternisko, Augustin Stoica, Kristina K. Stoyanova, Brent Strickland, Jukka Sundvall, Jeffrey P. Thomas, Gustav Tinghög, Benno Torgler, Iris J. Traast, Raffaele Tucciarelli, Michael Tyrala, Nick D. Ungson, Mete S. Uysal, Paul A. M. Van Lange, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Dirk van Rooy, Daniel Vaestfjäll, Peter Verkoeijen, Joana B. Vieira, Christian von Sikorski, Alexander Cameron Walker, Jennifer Watermeyer, Erik Wetter, Ashley Whillans, Katherine White, Rishad Habib, Robin Willardt, Michael J. A. Wohl, Adrian Dominik Wojcik, Kaidi Wu, Yuki Yamada, Onurcan Yilmaz, Kumar Yogeeswaran, Carolin-Theresa Ziemer, Rolf A. Zwaan, Paulo S. Boggio, Waldir M. Sampaio (2023) Social and moral psychology of COVID-19 across 69 countries Scientific Data, Vol. 10, Article 272 Continue to DOI

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