David G. Rand

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David G. Rand

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Affiliated MIT Sloan Group

MIT Department

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David Rand is the Erwin H. Schell Professor and Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, the director of the Applied Cooperation Initiative, and an affiliate of the MIT Institute of Data, Systems, and Society, and the Initiative on the Digital Economy.

Bridging the fields of cognitive science, behavioral economics, and social psychology, David’s research combines behavioral experiments run online and in the field with mathematical and computational models to understand people’s attitudes, beliefs, and choices. His work uses a cognitive science perspective grounded in the tension between more intuitive versus deliberative modes of decision-making. He focuses on illuminating why people believe and share misinformation and “fake news,” understanding political psychology and polarization, and promoting human cooperation. David received his BA in computational biology from Cornell University in 2004 and his PhD in systems biology from Harvard University in 2009, was a post-doctoral researcher in Harvard University’s Department of Psychology from 2009 to 2013, and was an Assistant and then Associate Professor (with tenure) of Psychology, Economics, and Management at Yale University prior to joining the faculty at MIT.

David's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the American Economic Review, Psychological Science, Management Science, New England Journal of Medicine, and the American Journal of Political Science, and has received widespread attention from print, radio, TV, and social media outlets. He has also written popular press articles for outlets including the New York Times, Wired, New Scientist, and the Psychological Observer. He was named to Wired magazine’s Smart List 2012 of “50 people who will change the world,” chosen as a 2012 Pop!Tech Science Fellow, and awarded the 2015 Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Research, fact-checking researcher of the year in 2017 by the Poyner Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network, and the 2020 FABBS Early Career Impact Award from the Society for Judgment and Decision Making. Papers he has coauthored have been awarded Best Paper of the Year in Experimental Economics, Social Cognition, and Political Methodology.

Honors

David Rand wins two awards

Publications

"Differences in Misinformation Sharing can lead to Politically Asymmetric Sanctions."

Mosleh, Mohsen, Qi Yang, Tauhid Zaman, Gordon Pennycook, and David G. Rand. Nature. Forthcoming.

"Fact-checker Warning Labels are Effective Even for Those Who Distrust Fact-checkers."

Martel, Cameron and David G. Rand. Nature Human Behaviour. Forthcoming. Download Preprint.

"Self-Persuasion Does Not Imply Self-Deception."

Zhang, Yunhao and David G. Rand, MIT Sloan Working Paper 7064-24. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, April 2024.

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Press

Social media users’ actions could drive platform enforcement

A paper in Nature suggests that the higher quantity of social media policy enforcement for conservative users could be explained by the higher quantity of misinformation shared by those users.

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Ideas Made to Matter

An AI chatbot can reduce belief in conspiracy theories

The artificial intelligence-powered “DebunkBot” reduced individuals’ belief in conspiracy theories and lessened their conspiratorial mindset, according to a new study.

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Media Highlights

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