gusti22

Gustav Tinghög

Professor

The core aim of my research is to understand everyday decision-making and its underlying processes, both at the individual level and the societal level. A particular focus area for my research is decision-making and priority setting in health care.

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

Video

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

2024

Kimberly C. Doell, Boryana Todorova, Madalina Vlasceanu, Joseph B. Bak Coleman, Ekaterina Pronizius, Philipp Schumann, Flavio Azevedo, Yash Patel, Michael M. Berkebile-Wineberg, Cameron Brick, Florian Lange, Samantha J. Grayson, Yifei Pei, AlekC Hakrof, Karlijn L. van den Broek, Claus Lamm, Denisa Vlasceanu, Sara M. Constantino, Steve Rathje, Danielle Goldwert, Ke Fang, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Mark Alfano, Andy J. Alvarado-Yepez, Angelica Andersen, Frederik Anseel, Matthew A. J. Apps, Chillar Asadli, Fonda Jane Awuor, Piero Basaglia, Jocelyn J. Belanger, Sebastian Berger, Paul Bertin, Michal Bialek, Olga Bialobrzeska, Michelle Blaya-Burgo, Danielle N. M. Bleize, Simen Bo, Lea Boecker, Paulo S. Boggio, Sylvie Borau, Bjorn Bos, Ayoub Bouguettaya, Markus Brauer, Tymofi Brik, Roman Briker, Tobias Brosch, Ondrej Buchel, Daniel Buonauro, Radhika Butalia, Hector Carvacho, Sarah A. E. Chamberlain, Hang-Yee Chan, Dawn Chow, Dongil Chung, Luca Cian, Noa Cohen-Eick, Luis Sebastian Contreras-Huerta, Davide Contu, Vladimir Cristea, Jo Cutler, Silvana D'Ottone, Jonas Dekeersmaecker, Sarah Delcourt, Sylvain Delouvee, Kathi Diel, Benjamin D. Douglas, Moritz A. Drupp, Shreya Dubey, Janis Ekmanis, Christian T. Elbaek, Mahmoud Elsherif, Iris M. Engelhard, Yannik A. Escher, TomW Etienne, Laura Farage, Ana Rita Farias, Stefan Feuerriegel, Andrej Findor, Lucia Freira, Malte Friese, Neil Philip Gains, Albina Gallyamova, Sandra J. Geiger, Oliver Genschow, Biljana Gjoneska, Theoflos Gkinopoulos, Beth Goldberg, Amit Goldenberg, Sarah Gradidge, Simone Grassini, Kurt Gray, Sonja Grelle, Siobhan M. Grifn, Lusine Grigoryan, Ani Grigoryan, Dmitry Grigoryev, June Gruber, Johnrev Guilaran, Britt Hadar, Ulf J. J. Hahnel, Eran Halperin, Annelie J. Harvey, Christian A. P. Haugestad, Aleksandra M. Herman, Hal E. Hershfeld, Toshiyuki Himichi, Donald W. Hine, Wilhelm Hofmann, Lauren Howe, Enma T. Huaman-Chulluncuy, Guanxiong Huang, Tatsunori Ishii, Ayahito Ito, Fanli Jia, John T. Jost, Veljko Jovanovic, Dominika Jurgiel, Ondrej Kacha, Reeta Kankaanpaa, Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, Keren Kaplan Mintz, Ilker Kaya, Ozgur Kaya, Narine Khachatryan, Anna Klas, Colin Klein, Christian A. Klockner, Lina Koppel, Alexandra I Kosachenko, Emily J. Kothe, Ruth Krebs, Amy R. Krosch, Andre P. M. Krouwel, Yara Kyrychenko, Maria Lagomarsino, Julia Lee Cunningham, Jefrey Lees, Tak Yan Leung, Neil Levy, Patricia L. Lockwood, Chiara Longoni, Alberto Lopez Ortega, David D. Loschelder, Jackson G. Lu, Yu Luo, Joseph Luomba, Annika E. Lutz, Johann M. Majer, Ezra Markowitz, Abigail A. Marsh, Karen Louise Mascarenhas, Bwambale Mbilingi, Winfred Mbungu, Cillian McHugh, Marijn H. C. Meijers, Hugo Mercier, Fenant Laurent Mhagama, Katerina Michalaki, Nace Mikus, Sarah G. Milliron, Panagiotis Mitkidis, Fredy S. Monge-Rodriguez, Youri L. Mora, Michael J. Morais, David Moreau, Kosuke Motoki, Manuel Moyano, Mathilde Mus, Joaquin Navajas, Tam Luong Nguyen, Dung Minh Nguyen, Trieu Nguyen, Laura Niemi, Sari R. R. Nijssen, Gustav Nilsonne, Jonas P. Nitschke, Laila Nockur, Ritah Okura, Sezin Oner, Asil Ali Ozdogru, Helena Palumbo, Costas Panagopoulos, Maria Serena Panasiti, Philip Parnamets, Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, YuriG Pavlov, Cesar Payan-Gomez, Adam R. Pearson, Leonor Pereira da Costa, Hannes M. Petrowsky, Stefan Pfattheicher, Nhat Tan Pham, Vladimir Ponizovskiy, Clara Pretus, Gabriel G. Rego, Ritsaart Reimann, Shawn A. Rhoads, Julian Riano-More, Isabell Richter, Jan Philipp Roer, Jahred Rosa-Sullivan, Robert M. Ross, Anandita Sabherwal, Toshiki Saito, Oriane Sarrasin, Nicolas Say, Katharina Schmid, Michael T. Schmitt, Philipp Schoenegger, Christin Scholz, Mariah G. Schug, Stefan Schulreich, Ganga Shreedhar, Eric Shuman, Smadar Sivan, Hallgeir Sjastad, Meikel Soliman, Katia Soud, Tobia Spampatti, Gregg Sparkman, Ognen Spasovski, Samantha K. Stanley, Jessica A. Stern, Noel Strahm, Yasushi Suko, Sunhae Sul, Stylianos Syropoulos, Neil C. Taylor, Elisa Tedaldi, Gustav Tinghög, Luu Duc Toan Huynh, Giovanni Antonio Travaglino, Ozden MelisUlug, Michael Tyrala, Arkadiusz Urbanek, Danila Valko, Sander van der Linden, Kevin van Schie, Aart van Stekelenburg, Edmunds Vanags, Daniel Västfjäll, Stepan Vesely, Jachym Vintr, Marek Vranka, Patrick Otuo Wanguche, Robb Willer, Adrian Dominik Wojcik, Rachel Xu, Anjali Yadav, Magdalena Zawisza, Xian Zhao, Jiaying Zhao, Dawid Zuk, Jay J. Van Bavel (2024) The International Climate Psychology Collaboration: Climate change-related data collected from 63 countries Scientific Data, Vol. 11, Article 1066 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Lewend Mayiwar, Erkin Asutay, Gustav Tinghög, Daniel Västfjäll, Kinga Barrafrem (2024) Determinants of digital well-being AI & Society: The Journal of Human-Centred Systems and Machine Intelligence (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Daniel Västfjäll, Erkin Asutay, Gustav Tinghög (2024) How Affective Science Can Inform Behavioral Public Policy Affective Science (Article, review/survey) Continue to DOI
Kinga Barrafrem, Mario Kienzler, Daniel Västfjäll, Gustav Tinghög (2024) The Effect of Scarcity and Information Avoidance on Debt Management Behavior Financial Counseling and Planning, Vol. 35, p. 366-380 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Eirik Strømland, Lina Koppel, Magnus Johannesson, Gustav Tinghög (2024) Confusion remains an important issue in public goods game experiments Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 121, Article e2411093121 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

News

A man in a suit holds a green plant in his hand.

LiU involved in a megastudy on climate behaviour

What is the best way to make people behave in a more climate-friendly way? Researchers at Linköping University and Karolinska Institutet have contributed to a worldwide study on this topic.

Portrait of professor Gustav Tinghög.

Researchers overestimate their own honesty

The average researcher thinks they are better than their colleagues at following good research practice. They also think that their own research field is better than other fields. This is shown in a new study at Linköping University.

Portrait of professor Gustav Tinghög.

Emotions often defeat sense in healthcare priority setting

Emotions tend to get the upper hand in healthcare decisions. This is shown in a Linköping University study. The results may explain why effective use of healthcare resources is so slow in the making, according to the researchers.

Organisation