More information

Profile

Gabriele Paolacci is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Gabriele joined RSM after graduate studies at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (where he got his PhD) and at Ross School of Business, University of Michigan (where he was a visiting scholar).

In his research, Gabriele's focuses on substantive and methodological issues in consumer judgment and decision-making. Within the substantive domain, he studies how people’s decisions seemingly contradict the assumptions and prescriptions of rational choice theory. He also conducts empirical research into the practices of data collection in the behavioral sciences. He has investigated whether crowdsourced samples (e.g., MTurk workers) provide data of high quality, and how to attenuate their distinctive threats to experimental validity (e.g., nonnaive participants, study impostors). He is an advocate of open science practices.

Gabriele's research has been published in leading journals in marketing (e.g., Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology), management (Management Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes), psychology (e.g., Psychological Science, Trends in Cognitive Sciences), and beyond. Gabriele is the recipient of a VENI research grant by NWO, as well as of several ERIM Research Awards (2015 Outstanding Performance by a Young Researcher Award, 2018 Top Article Impact Award, 2020 Open Science Award). He is currently a member of the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Psychology and of Behavioral Research Methods. 

Gabriele currently teaches Psychology & Business (MSc), Influencing People: Psychology and Practice (undergraduate), and Behavioural Management Science (undergraduate). He frequently coaches and gives workshops on managerial decision-making to MBA and EMBA students, and co-teaches an executive program titled "Leading with Decision Driven Analytics".

For more information see his CV or check www.gabrielepaolacci.com.

Publications

Academic (20)
  • Paolacci, G., & Andre, Q. (Accepted/In press). Probabilistic Outcomes Are Valued Less in Expectation, Even Conditional on Their Realization. Management Science. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/4MUE3

  • Leung, E., Cito, MC., Paolacci, G., & Puntoni, S. (2022). Preference for Material Products in Identity-Based Consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 32(4), 672-679. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1272

  • Paolacci, G., & Yalcin, G. (2020). Fewer but poorer: Benevolent partiality in prosocial preferences. Judgment and Decision Making, 15(2), 173-181.

  • Paolacci, G., & Chandler, J. (2018). Direct replications in the era of open sampling (commentary on “Making replication mainstream” by Zwaan, Etz, Lucas, and Donnellan). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41(2018), E144. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X18000808

  • Leung, E., Paolacci, G., & Puntoni, S. (2018). Man Versus Machine: Resisting Automation in Identity-Based Consumer Behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 55(6), 818-831. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.16.0443

  • Rick, S., Paolacci, G., & Burson, K. (2018). Income Tax and the Motivation to Work. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 31(5), 619-631. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2078

  • Stewart, N., Chandler, J., & Paolacci, G. (2017). Crowdsourcing Samples in Cognitive Science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(10), 736-748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.007

  • Zwaan, R., Pecher, D., Paolacci, G., Bouwmeester, S., Verkoeijen, P., Dijkstra, K., & Zeelenberg, R. (2017). Participant Nonnaiveté and the reproducibility of cognitive psychology. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 25(5), 1968-1972. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1348-y

  • Chandler, J., & Paolacci, G. (2017). Lie for a Dime: When most prescreening responses are honest but most study participants are imposters. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(5), 500-508. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617698203

  • Goodman, JK., & Paolacci, G. (2017). Crowdsourcing Consumer Research. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(1), 196-210. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucx047

  • Stewart, N., Ungemach, C., Harris, A., Bartels, D., Newell, B., Paolacci, G., & Chandler, J. (2015). The Average Laboratory Samples a Population of 7,300 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers. Judgment and Decision Making, 10(5), 479-491.

  • Chandler, J., Paolacci, G., Peer, E., Mueller, P., & Ratliff, KA. (2015). Using nonnaive participants can reduce effect sizes. Psychological Science, 26(7), 1131-1139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615585115

  • Paolacci, G., Straeter, L., & Hooge, IE. (2015). Give Me Your Self: Gifts are Liked More When They Match the Giver's Characteristics. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(3), 487-494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2015.01.006

  • Dannenberg, A., Löschel, A., Paolacci, G., Reif, C., & Tavoni, A. (2015). On the Provision of Public Goods with Probabilistic and Ambiguous Thresholds. Environmental and Resource Economics, 61(3), 365-383. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-014-9796-6

  • Sweldens, S., Puntoni, S., Paolacci, G., & Vissers, M. (2014). The Bias in the Bias: Comparative Optimism as a Function of Event Social Undesirability. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124(2), 229-244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.03.007

  • Paolacci, G., & Chandler, J. (2014). Inside the Turk: Understanding Mechanical Turk as a Participant Pool. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(3), 184-188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414531598

  • Chandler, J., Mueller, P., & Paolacci, G. (2013). Nonnaïveté among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers: Consequences and solutions for behavioral researchers. Behavior Research Methods, 46(1), 112-130. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-013-0365-7

  • Paolacci, G., & Legrenzi, E. P. (2012). Financial literacy e abilità cognitive: uno studio empirico. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, 39(3), 707-716. https://doi.org/10.1421/38779

  • Paolacci, G., Burson, K., & Rick, S. (2011). The intermediate alternative effect: Considering a small tradeoff increases subsequent willingness to make large tradeoffs. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21(4), 384-392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.04.005

  • Paolacci, G., Chandler, J., & Ipeirotis, P. (2010). Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Judgment and Decision Making, 5(5), 411-419. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/97680

Professional (2)
  • Paolacci, G. (2018). Crowdsourced consumer data: how do we make sure it's good? RSM Discovery - Management Knowledge, 34(2), 10-11. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/108776

  • Paolacci, G. (2015). Consumer insights: think of yourself when buying for others. RSM Discovery - Management Knowledge, 23(3), 12-13. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/78691

Academic (4)
  • Zallot, C., Paolacci, G., Chandler, J., & Sisso, I. (2022). Crowdsourcing in Observational and Experimental Research. In Handbook of Computational Social Science (Vol. 2, pp. 140-157). Routeledge (expected). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003025245-12

  • Leung, E., Paolacci, G., & Puntoni, S. (2019). How technology shapes identity-based consumer behavior. In Handbook of Research on Identity Theory in Marketing (pp. 240-254). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788117739.00027

  • Hauser, D., Paolacci, G., & Chandler, J. (2019). Common concerns with mturk as a participant pool: Evidence and solutions. In F. R. Kardes, P. M. Herr, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Handbook of Research Methods in Consumer Psychology (pp. 319-337). Taylor and Francis Inc.. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351137713

  • Chandler, J., Paolacci, G., & Mueller, P. (2013). Risks and Rewards of Crowdsourcing Marketplaces. In P. Michelucci (Ed.), Handbook of Human Computation (pp. 377-392). Springer-Verlag. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/51293

Courses

Influencing People: psychology and practice

  • Study year: 2023/2024, 2022/2023, 2021/2022
  • Code: B3MIN1017
  • Level: Bachelor, Bachelor 3, Bachelor 3

Behavioural Management Science

  • Study year: 2023/2024, 2022/2023, 2021/2022
  • Code: B3T3101
  • Level: Bachelor 3, Bachelor 3, Bachelor 3

Current Topics in Marketing Research

  • Study year: 2023/2024, 2022/2023, 2021/2022
  • Code: BERMASC040
  • ECTS: 5 Level: PhD

Psychology & Business

  • Study year: 2023/2024, 2022/2023, 2021/2022, 2020/2021, 2019/2020
  • Code: BM25MIM
  • ECTS: 4 Level: Master

Past courses

Influencing people: psychology and practice

  • Study year: 2020/2021, 2019/2020, 2018/2019, 2017/2018, 2016/2017, 2015/2016, 2014/2015
  • Code: BKBMIN017
  • Level: Bachelor, Bachelor 3, Bachelor 3

Marketing Management Thesis Clinic

  • Study year: 2020/2021, 2019/2020, 2018/2019, 2017/2018
  • Code: BMRMMM
  • ECTS: 4 Level: Master

MM Master Thesis

  • Study year: 2020/2021
  • Code: BMMTMM
  • ECTS: 16 Level: Master

Thesis Topic Development

  • Study year: 2020/2021, 2019/2020, 2018/2019, 2017/2018
  • Code: BM06MM
  • ECTS: 1 Level: Master

Managerial decision making & negotiation

  • Study year: 2018/2019, 2017/2018, 2016/2017, 2015/2016
  • Code: BM10MIM
  • ECTS: 2 Level: Master

Crowdsourcing Data Collection

  • Study year: 2014/2015
  • Code: BERMAMC011
  • ECTS: 3 Level: Master

International Marketing Research

  • Study year: 2014/2015
  • Code: BAB011
  • ECTS: 3 Level: Bachelor 2, Bachelor 2, Pre-master

Managerial decision making & negotiation

  • Study year: 2014/2015
  • Code: BKM10GM
  • ECTS: 2 Level: Master

Marketing research

  • Study year: 2014/2015
  • Code: BKB0024
  • ECTS: 3 Level: Bachelor 2, Pre-master

Featured in the media

  • 3 ways you can become a better gift-giver according to science

  • Do Income Taxes Decrease Worker Motivation?

    Filing the annual income tax return is never a pleasant chore, but do taxes affect your motivation to work? The findings from economic research have been mixed. Rick, Burson and co-author Gabriele Paolacci of the Rotterdam School…

  • Will paying income taxes make you work harder?

    Filing the annual income tax return is never a pleasant chore, but do taxes affect your motivation to work? The findings from economic research have been mixed. Rick, Burson and co-author Gabriele Paolacci of the Rotterdam School…

  • Will paying income taxes make you work harder?

    Filing the annual income tax return is never a pleasant chore, but do taxes affect your motivation to work? The findings from economic research have been mixed. Rick, Burson and co-author Gabriele Paolacci of the Rotterdam School…

  • The Fine Line Between Optimism and Fakery

    To fill in the gaps, my co-authors (Stefano Puntoni, Gabriele Paolacci, and Maarten Vissers of Rotterdam School of Management) and I revisited data from 28 past studies on optimism bias, encompassing 8,826 participants in all. Our…

  • Psychologists grow increasingly dependent on online research subjects

    Gabriele Paolacci and other researchers made the first effort to estimate the effective MTurk research population, the results sent shock waves through the community last year. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online…

Featured on RSM Discovery