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Summary
Joshua Ackerman is the Class of 1957 Career Development Professor and an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to MIT Sloan, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University. In his work, Ackerman applies an evolutionary perspective to the psychological mechanisms that drive both conscious and nonconscious social coordination in consumer behavior. His research focuses on basic cognitive processing, such as attention and memory, as well as executive functioning and interpersonal cooperation. In his recent work on vicarious self-control, which was featured in Time Magazine, Ackerman showed that people’s ability to resist impulsive behaviors and push themselves to good long-term outcomes is intimately tied to the self-control behaviors of others in the social environment. Within consumer environments, social coordination can affect a range of preference formation, information processing, and decision-making processes.
| Current Institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Current School | MIT Sloan School of Management |
| Department | Marketing |
| Disciplines | |
| Address | 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E62-541 Cambridge Massachusetts United States Phone: (617) 258-9102 |
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Education
Arizona State University
Ph.D,
Social Psychology
(2007)
Duke University
B.A,
Social Psychology & Biological Anthropology
(1998)
Work Experience
Assistant professor
MIT Sloan School of Management
(2009 - Present)
Achievements
- National Science Foundation
General
Publication Summary
Publications
- “The Financial Consequences of Too Many Men: Sex Ratio Effects on Saving, Borrowing, and Spending,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [forthcoming]
- “Fundamental Motives and Business Decisions,” in G. Saad (Ed.) Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences. Springer. [2011]
- “Let’s Get Serious: Communicating Commitment in Romantic Relationship Formation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [2011]
- “Why We Buy: Evolution and Consumer Behavior,” in S. C. Roberts (Ed.) Applied Evolutionary Psychology, Oxford University Press. [2011]
- “Incidental haptic sensations influence social judgments and decisions,” Science. [2010]
- "Infection breeds reticence: The effects of disease salience on self-perceptions of personality and behavioral avoidance tendencies," Psychological Science. [2009]
- “You Wear Me Out: The Vicarious Depletion of Self-Control,” Psychological Science, 20, 326-332. [2009]
- “The Costs of Benefits: Help-Refusals Highlight Key Trade-Offs of Social Life,” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 118-140. [2008]
- “Is Friendship Akin to Kinship?” Evolution & Human Behavior, 28, 365-374. [2007]
Books
Other Publications
