Professor of Behavioral Science & Marketing · UC San Diego
What people do with money, not what they say they do.
I study financial decision-making using millions of real bank transactions and large-scale psychological data — the gap between how people think they handle money and how they actually handle it.
Read the research
Rady School of Management
Selected findings
Question · Answer
PSYCH SCIENCE 2019
Yes — from transactions alone
Areas of research
Three questions I keep returning to
Personality
Spending and Personality
What transaction records reveal about who someone is, and why spending in line with your personality pays off in wellbeing.
Explore the work →Wellbeing
Money and Wellbeing
Income and wealth predict how people feel less well than most assume. The shape of a financial life matters more than its size.
Explore the work →Households
Couples and Household Finance
Who manages the money, what happens when they stop, and how financial arrangements shape relationships.
Explore the work →Publications
Recent work
in press
Principal Linearity Neglect: Underestimating the Impact of Principal on Estimates of Compounding Growth
Posner, N.
JCP
in press
Evolving Norms of Market Fairness: A Contemporary Replication of Kahneman et al. (1986)
Rose, W.
PSPB
2025
Out of Control: The Interplay of Subjective Poverty and Income on Spending
Bellezza, S.
JMR
2025
Opening Up About Money: The Unexpected Benefits of Financial Disclosure
Meister, M., & Garbinsky, E.
OBHDP
2025
Buying (Quality) Time Predicts Relationship Satisfaction
Whillans, A., & Pow, J.
JPSP
2025
Courageous but Indebted? Regional Courage is Associated with Higher Debt-to-Income Ratio in the United States
Packer, J., & Götz, F.
PSPB