
Briony Pulford
My interests lie in both social and cognitive psychology, thus I am interested in social judgements, metacognition, overconfidence, uncertainty, the communication and perception of confidence and how all of these relate to individual differences.
Recently, I have been researching team reasoning and ambiguity aversion in decision making. My Ph.D. concerned overconfidence in judgements, but since then I have been working on how people perceive and interpret confidence and uncertainty in communication and how this affects decision making. I have been particularly involved in testing the confidence heuristic and examining the gender differences and individual differences influencing how people make use of information about other people’s confidence. This has influenced my recent research into advice taking and advice giving. I have also carried out several studies looking at decision making and advice seeking behaviour when people are uncertain. My Sabbatical research in 2001/2 cast light on new factors that influence ambiguity aversion in decision making. Other research has involved studying the personality factors that influence students’ confidence and beliefs about their academic abilities, and predictors of self-handicapping in students.
Primary Interests:
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Personality, Individual Differences
- Persuasion, Social Influence
- Social Cognition
Research Group or Laboratory:
Books:
Journal Articles:
- Bolger, F., Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (2008). Market entry decisions: Effects of absolute and relative confidence. Experimental Psychology, 55(2), 113-120.
- Colman, A. M., Browning, L., & Pulford, B. D. (2012). Spontaneous similarity discrimination in the evolution of cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 299, 162-171.
- Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., & Bolger, F. (2007). Asymmetric dominance and phantom decoy effects in games. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104(2), 193-206.
- Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., & Lawrence, C. L. (2014). Explaining strategic coordination: Cognitive hierarchy theory, strong Stackelberg reasoning, and team reasoning. Decision, 1(1), 35-58.
- Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., Omtzigt, D., & al-Nowaihi, A. (2010). Learning to cooperate without awareness in multiplayer minimal social situations. Cognitive Psychology, 61, 201-227.
- Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., & Rose, J. (2008). Collective rationality in interactive decisions: Evidence for team reasoning. Acta Psychologica, 128(2), 387-397.
- Gold, N., Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (2013). Your money or your life: Comparing judgments in trolley problems involving economic and emotional harms, injury and death. Economics and Philosophy, 29, 213-233.
- Pulford, B. D. (2011). The influence of advice in a Virtual Learning Environment. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(1), 31-39.
- Pulford, B. D. (2009). Is luck on my side? Optimism, pessimism, and ambiguity aversion. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(6), 1079-1087.
- Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (2008). Size doesn't really matter: Ambiguity aversion in Ellsberg urns with few balls. Experimental Psychology, 55(1), 31-37.
- Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (2007). Ambiguous games: Evidence for strategic ambiguity aversion. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60(8), 1083-1100.
- Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (1997). Overconfidence: Feedback and item difficulty effects. Personality and Individual Differences, 23(1), 125-133.
- Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (1996). Overconfidence, base rates, and outcome positivity/negativity of predicted events. British Journal of Psychology, 87, 431-445.
- Pulford, B. D., Johnson, A., & Awaida, M. (2005). A cross-cultural study of predictors of self-handicapping in university students. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 727-737.
- Pulford, B. D., & Sohal, H. (2006). The influence of personality on HE students' confidence in their academic abilities. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 1409-1419.
- Watson, A. E., & Pulford, B. D. (2004). Personality differences in high risk sports amateurs and instructors. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 99, 83-94.
- Wesson, C., & Pulford, B. D. (2009). Verbal expressions of confidence and doubt. Psychological Reports, 105, 151-160.
Other Publications:
- Pulford, B. D. (2002). The influence of speech confidence on choice and decision confidence. Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, 10, 94.
- Pulford, B. D., & Evans, L. (2006). Influences on advisors' confidence. Poster presented at the Advice and Trust in Decision Making conference, UCL, London, June 29-30, 2006.
Briony Pulford
School of Psychology
Henry Wellcome Building
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
United Kingdom
- Phone: +44 0116 229 7172