Brain Candy

Ellen Peters wants to probe your brain, and you should probably let her. After all, she has your best interests at heart.

As one of the world’s top experts on how—and why—we make decisions, Peters wants you to understand science and numbers better so that you can make well-informed choices. Thanks to a Philip H. Knight Chair, she’s doing this life-changing work at the UO.
 

“I try to understand the psychological regularities that underlie how people judge and decide,” Peters says. “It’s like you get to dip into peoples’ minds and see what they’re doing.”
 

Peters works with the National Cancer Institute, Fidelity Investments, and USAFacts, a not-for-profit civic initiative that provides information and data as a public service. She’s also worked with the Rand Corporation and the Food and Drug Administration. Whether studying how people make investing decisions or how doctors talk to patients, her ultimate goal has been to help people lead healthier, happier lives. 
 

Sound decision making, says Peters, doesn’t mean everyone thinking or doing the same thing. It means individuals understanding numbers and facts well enough to make informed decisions that are consistent with their values and priorities. And you might be surprised how often your choices don’t align with what (you think) is important to you.

“It’s really interesting how you can look under the rocks and see what’s there, how peoples’ minds are working as they judge and decide,” says Peters. “They’re not even aware they’re doing it. This beautiful brain-candy science fascinates me. I’m just curious. How the heck did they decide to do something that makes no sense to me?”

Before returning to Eugene (she earned her PhD at the UO’s Psychology Department), Peters was a distinguished professor of psychology at Ohio State University and director of the Decision Sciences Collaborative. The offer of a Knight Professorship helped us persuade her to come here.

“I knew what it meant to be a Knight Chair,” says Peters. “It’s a big deal. It’s an indication that they value what I do and what I have to offer—that’s important to me.

“I’m not sure I would have come to the UO without it. There’s the prestige of a named chair, funding for research, and of course the salary. Those things make a difference when you’re deciding to leave someplace comfortable, and we were comfortable in Ohio.”

Peters adds that the chair includes important funding for graduate students and research employees, as well as a safety net of discretionary resources. Federal grants are often constrained, says Peters. Sometimes funding runs out, circumstances change quickly, or new opportunities arise. The flexible funding provided by the Knight Chair, for instance, made it possible to act fast and conduct communication research related to COVID-19, including its vaccines.

Staying nimble, allocating resources strategically, and empowering graduate students to pursue side projects doesn’t just enable great research, she adds. This groundbreaking work helps the center win more grants, continue the upward spiral of research, and advance our understanding of one of the most vexing mysteries for a species that (supposedly) has free will: the decision.

We make hundreds of decisions every day and most are insignificant, says Peters. But they add up.

Trying one cigarette is probably harmless, for instance. But repeating that small choice thousands of times will lead to major health problems. Communicating effectively about the risks of smoking—and understanding the psychology of addiction—could make people live longer (and enjoy more of the years they’re alive).

Helping people lead better lives is a key goal for the Center for Science Communication Research (SCR) at the UO’s School of Journalism and Communication, where Peters is director. Here, faculty members and students research innovative ways to make complicated science useful for nonscientists. 
 

The SCR leverages gifts made by UO donors to initiate projects that help them get future research grants, says Peters. This increases the impact of their contributions as well as the work SCR does to enhance our understanding of science—no small task in today’s complex, information-filled world.

“There’s so much information in our world now,” says Peters. “It’s complex, and there are so many choices we have to make every day. We lean back on simple mental shortcuts to judge risk.

“For example, do we wear a mask to stop the spread of COVID-19 or not? Our communication networks sometimes give us conflicting information. So people trust nobody. Or they lean back on their most trusted source, which might not be science.

Sometimes, a trusted source actually has scientific knowledge and the best intentions—but not the ability to communicate effectively with nonexperts. Peters recalls a patient counselor who approached her after her speech at a genetic health care conference to ask for some coaching on patient communication.

“I sat in on several very emotional appointments, where people were learning they had genetic predispositions for life-threatening diseases,” recalls Peters. “This counselor was a lovely person, but confusing the patients with numbers. 
 

“I offered some basic pointers, and didn’t think much about it. Months later, I bumped into her at the store and she told me what a big difference my advice had made.”
 

Peters is working to codify insights like these, make useful discoveries through controlled research, and train experts how to better communicate with the general public. The center also aims to help the rest of us understand science and numbers in useful ways. 
 

The endgame is improving lives. That, says Peters, is the point of all their hard work.
 

“We want to increase people’s use of science,” says Peters. “History shows us that’s what makes us healthier, wealthier, and more productive.

Links
:: School of Journalism and Communication
:: Center for Science Communication Research
:: Video: How Science Communication Helps Us Make Decisions
:: Cognitive and Affective Influences in Decision making Lab
:: Emotion & Polarization in Decisions & Media in COVID-19 Study
:: Podcast with Fidelity Investments on the power of confidence in decision making
 

Story by Ed Dorsch, BA '94 (English and sociology), MA '99 (journalism) posted 2/18/2021

Want to support SCR’s important work? Contact Lauren Wilcox