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Deborah Small
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Wroe Alderson Term Assistant Professor of Marketing

Professor Deborah Small's research interfaces psychology and economics, examining fundamental processes that underlie human decision making.

Professor Small studies many decision contexts, including charitable giving, terrorism, negotiation, and buyer and seller behavior. Professor Small's research has been published in top-tier academic journals including Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, and Harvard Business Review. She has received funding awards from the American Psychological Association and the Russell Sage Foundation.

Professor Small teaches consumer behavior in the undergraduate, MBA, and PhD programs. She received her PhD in Psychology and Behavioral Decision Research from Carnegie Mellon University and her BS from the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a member of the graduate faculty of the Psychology Department at Penn.

Current Research Papers

Scott I. Rick, Deborah Small, Eli J. Finkel, (2008), "Fatal (fiscal) attraction: Tightwads and Spendthrifts in Marriage"

Deborah Small "Reference-dependent sympathy"

Publications

Deborah Small, Nicole Verrochi, (2009), "The face of need: Facial emotion expression on charity advertisements", Journal of Marketing Research

Deborah Small, Uri Simonsohn, (2008), "Friends of victims: Personal experience and prosocial behavior", Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 532-542

Deborah Small, Jennifer Lerner, (2008), "Emotional policy: Personal sadness and anger shape policy judgements", Political Psychology (Special issue on Emotion in Politics), 29(2), 149-168.

George Loewenstein, Deborah Small, (2007), "The scarecrow and the tinman: The vicissitudes of human sympathy and caring", Review of General Psychology, 2(1), 112-126

Don Moore, Deborah Small, (2007), "Error and bias in comparative social judgment: On being both better and worse than we think we are", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 972-989

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In The News

Opposites that attract, Philadelphia Daily News, 08/18/2009

I say spend. You say no. We're in love, New York Times, 08/15/2009

With spending, opposites attract and repel, Yahoo! Finance, 08/12/2009

Does More or Less Make You Mean?, BBC Radio, 05/08/2009

Use your heart and head when giving, Financial Times, 03/15/2008

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Awards

Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar, 2009

Fellow, Wharton Risk and Decision Processes Center, 2007

Social Issues Dissertation Award Finalist, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2005

Carnegie Mellon Graduate Student Travel Award, 2003

Travel grant, Budapest Summer Seminar in Behavioral Economics, 2003

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Knowledge@Wharton

'Mustaches for Kids': Charities Adopt Private Sector Models to Tap New Funds (06/24/2009)

Baseball, Steroids and Business Ethics: How Breaches of Trust Can Change the Game (02/20/2008)

Robbing the Cradle? If Marketers Get Their Way, That Bundle of Joy Can Cost a Bundle (07/25/2007)

To Increase Charitable Donations, Appeal to the Heart -- Not the Head (06/27/2007)

Deborah Small
700 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
3730 Walnut Street University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia , PA 19104
Phone: (215) 898-6494
Fax: (215) 898-2534
deborahs@wharton.upenn.edu

Wharton Page

Research Interests: Judgment and decision making, emotion, sympathy biases, behavioral economics

Last Modified September 18, 2009