Craig R. M. McKenzie

McKenzie's interests revolve around inference, uncertainty and choice. Most of his recent research explains errors people purportedly make in the laboratory by adopting a different (usually Bayesian) normative approach to the task of interest and taking into account the typical structure of the natural environment. He argues that many errors are the result of people behaving as (qualitative) Bayesians who make reasonable assumptions about task parameters that reflect how the world usually works.

McKenzie has won research awards from the National Science Foundation, the Operations Research Society of America and the Society for Judgment and Decision Making. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology in 1994 from the University of Chicago.

Selected Recent Publications

Leong, L. M., Müller-Trede, J., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2023). Is it a judgment of representativeness? Re-examining the birth sequence problem. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

Nelkin, D. K., McKenzie, C. R. M., Rickless, S. C., & Ryazanov, A. A. (2023). Trolley problems reimagined: Sensitivity to ratio, risk, and comparisons. In F. Aguiar, H. Viciana, & A. Gaitan (Eds.), Issues in experimental moral philosophy.

Ryazanov, A. A., Wang, T., Nelkin, D. K., McKenzie, C. R. M., & Rickless, S. C. (2023). Beyond killing one to save five: Sensitivity to ratio and probability in moral judgment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Sher, S., McKenzie, C. R. M., Müller-Trede, J., & Leong, L. M. (2022). Rational choice in context. Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2022). Incomplete preferences and rational framing effects. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Ryazanov, A. A., Wang, S. T., Rickless, S. C., McKenzie, C. R. M., & Nelkin, D. K. (2021). Sensitivity to shifts in probability of harm and benefit in moral dilemmas. Cognition, 209.

McKenzie, C. R. M., Leong, L. M., & Sher, S. (2021). Default sensitivity in attempts at social influence. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 28, 695-702.

Leong, L. M., Yin, Y., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2020). Exploiting asymmetric signals from choices through default selection. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27, 162-169.

McKenzie, C. R. M., & Sher, S. (2020). Gamble evaluation and evoked reference sets: Why adding a small loss to a gamble increases its attractiveness. Cognition, 194.

Donnelly, K. McKenzie, C. R. M., & Müller-Trede, J. (2019). Do publications in low-impact journals help or hurt a CV?  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Leong, L. M., McKenzie, C. R. M., Sher, S., & Mueller-Trede, J. (2019). Illusory inconsistencies in judgment: Evoked reference sets and between-subject designs. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

McKenzie, C. R. M., Sher, S., Leong, L. M., & Mueller-Trede, J. (2018). Constructed preferences, rationality, and choice architecture. Review of Behavioral Economics, 5, 337-360.

Mueller-Trede, J., Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2018). When payoffs look like probabilities: Separating form and content in risky choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147, 662-670.

Leong, L. M., McKenzie, C. R. M., Sher, S., & Mueller-Trede, J. (2017). The role of inference in attribute framing effects. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.

McKenzie, C. R. M., Sher, S., Mueller-Trede, J., Lin, C., Liersch, M. J., & Rawstron, A. G. (2016). Are longshots only for losers? A new look at the last race effect. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 29, 25-36.

Mueller-Trede, J., Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2015). Transitivity in context: A rational analysis of intransitive choice and context-sensitive preference. Decision, 2, 280-305.

Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2014). Options as information: Rational reversals of evaluation and preference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 1127-1143.

Rusconi, P., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2013). Insensitivity and oversensitivity to answer diagnosticity in hypothesis testing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, 2443-2464.

McKenzie, C. R. M., & Chase, V. M. (2012). Why rare things are precious: How rarity benefits inference. In P. M. Todd, G. Gigerenzer, & the ABC Research Group (Eds.), Ecological rationality: Intelligence in the world (pp. 309-334). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McKenzie, C. R. M., & Liersch, M. J. (2011). Misunderstanding savings growth: Implications for retirement savings behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 48, S1-S13.

Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2011). Levels of information: A framing hierarchy. In G. Keren (ed.), Perspectives on framing (pp. 35-63). Psychology Press - Taylor & Francis Group.

Nelson, J. D., McKenzie, C. R. M., Cottrell, G. W., & Sejnowski, T. J. (2010). Experience matters: Information acquisition optimizes probability gain. Psychological Science, 21, 960-969.

Schotter, E. R., Berry, R. W., McKenzie, C. R. M., & Rayner, K. (2010). Gaze bias: Selective encoding and liking effects. Visual Cognition, 18, 1113-1132.

Liersch, M. J., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2009). Duration neglect by numbers -- and its elimination by graphs. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 303-314.

McKenzie, C. R. M. (2009). Business and psychology: The growing trend of judgment and decision making. Rady Business Journal, 2, 16-22.

McKenzie, C. R. M., Liersch, M. J., & Yaniv, I. (2008). Overconfidence in interval estimates: What does expertise buy you? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 107, 179-191.

Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2008). Framing effects and rationality. In N. Chater & M. Oaksford (Eds.), The probabilistic mind: Prospects for Bayesian cognitive science (pp. 79-96). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McKenzie, C. R. M., & Mikkelsen, L. A. (2007). A Bayesian view of covariation assessment. Cognitive Psychology, 54, 33-61.

Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2006). Information leakage from logically equivalent frames. Cognition, 101, 467-494.

McKenzie, C. R. M., Liersch, M. J., & Finkelstein, S. R. (2006). Recommendations implicit in policy defaults. Psychological Science, 17, 414-420.

Decision making
Rationality
Creativity