Clayton R. Critcher

Joe Shoong Chair of Business | Associate Professor | Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES

Identifying and explaining skills and shortcomings in people's social, economic, moral, and political judgments

Areas of Expertise (4)

Self and Social Judgment

Moral Psychology

Consumer Experience

Judgment and Decision Making

About

Clayton Critcher is an Associate Professor of marketing, cognitive science, and psychology at Berkeley Haas. A social psychologist, Critcher researches how people come to understand themselves and other people and to make judgments and decisions in economic, morally relevant, and social situations.

Education (2)

Cornell University: PhD, Psychology

Yale University: AB, Psychology

Links (3)

Honors & Awards (8)

Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty

Fellow

Sage Young Scholar Award

2015

Hellman Fellow

Fellowship

Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award

2014

Science: Editors’ Choice

Award

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Fellowship

Yale University Angier Prize

Award

Society of Experimental Social Psychology

Fellow

Selected External Service & Affiliations (9)

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Associate Editor
Social Psychological and Personality Science : Editorial Board
Self & Identity : Editorial Board
Association for Psychological Science
Association for Consumer Research
Society for Consumer Psychology
Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Society for Judgment and Decision Making
Society of Experimental Social Psychology

Positions Held (1)

At Haas since 2010

2020 - present: Director, Haas Behavioral Lab 2020 - present, PhD Field Advisor, Marketing 2017 – present, Institute for Personality and Social Research 2016 – present, Associate Professor of Marketing, Haas School of Business 2013 – present, Department of Psychology (affiliate) 2011 – present, Cognitive Science Faculty 2010 – 2016, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Haas School of Business

Media Appearances (10)

Psychologists reveal what everyone gets wrong about first impressions

Inverse online

2020-10-07

A study by Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher found that we evaluate other people’s moral character not simply by what they do, but also by context. This means that even if someone does something wrong, they can still be judged as being morally correct, depending on the circumstances. "Judgments about moral character are ultimately judgments about whether we trust and would be willing to invest in a person," he said.

Why Do Politicians Need to Say 'I Approve This Message' in Their Ads?

Mental Floss online

2020-09-16

In 2002, legislation was introduced to make candidates "stand by their ads" in an attempt to make the political ad space more fair and decrease negative campaigning. According to research by Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher, it's had the opposite effect. Negative campaign ads made up 29 percent of political persuasion spots in 2000, and that number rose to 64 percent in 2012. In the week before the 2016 presidential election, 92 percent of ads were characterized as negative.

Recalling Memories From A Distance Changes How Your Brain Works And Helps You Excel In Your Career

Forbes online

2020-09-04

Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher's research found that positive affirmations function as "cognitive expanders," bringing a wider perspective to diffuse the brain’s tunnel vision of self-threats. Self affirmations helped research participants cultivate a long-distance relationship with their so-called "judgment voice" and see themselves more broadly, bolstering their self-worth.

California requires masks, but not everyone wears one. Here’s how to fix that

San Francisco Chronicle online

2020-07-27

Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher said mask mandates can trigger "reactance," the natural reactionary feeling people have when their freedoms are limited. An effective mask campaign must "reframe the issue not about what people have to do themselves, but about how we can all keep each other safe," he said.

Why We Should Stop Worrying About What Others Think of Us

Knowledge@Wharton online

2020-03-31

Moon wrote the paper with Clayton Critcher, associate professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and Muping Gan, a former UC Berkeley graduate researcher who now works for YouTube. Moon recently discussed the implications of their research with Knowledge@Wharton.

Political campaign ads may have ironic side effects

American Marketing Association podcast radio

2018-11-05

Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher was interviewed about his research that found mandatory candidate endorsements may incentivize nastiness.

'I Approve This Message' Has an Unwelcome Subtext

Pacific Standard Magazine online

2018-03-02

Many participants in a study saw that notification as an indication that "the ad had been touched by regulation," said Clayton Critcher of the University of California–Berkeley, who co-authored the study with Minah Jung of New York University. "That gave a legitimizing halo to the message as a whole. We hope that by bringing this to light, policymakers might realize this provision is not serving the public, and find a better way"...

That “I Approve” Tagline on Political Ads May Have Precisely the Opposite Effect of What Congress Intended

Mother Jones online

2018-02-16

“For a couple of reasons, when that tagline is added to political ads, then people believe the content of the ads more,” says study co-author Clayton Critcher, an associate professor at the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. “That’s particularly true for ads that people start out with the most skepticism about, which are precisely those ads that [Congress was] trying to discourage: negative ads. So adding the tagline, far from disincentivizing negativity in advertising, has actually made it surprisingly effective by increasing how true those messages seem.”

Frisbees, Hula Hoops and Hacky Sacks. Southern California's Wham-O looks to reinvent its toys for the digital age

Los Angeles Times online

2017-08-09

“The downside of [Wham-O’s] business model—in which products themselves attain greater brand equity than their parent brands—is it means Wham-O has a more difficult time with launching new products,” said Clayton Critcher, a retail expert and professor at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. “When each product is essentially its own brand, it raises the marketing challenges in pushing new products. It requires Wham-O to launch a new brand with each product.”

How to Tell If Someone Will Succeed

Time Magazine online

2016-10-27

Study authors Melissa J. Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Cornell University and Clayton R. Critcher, Associate Professor of Marketing, Cognitive Science, & Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, contributed this article illustrating how their research could be applied to predict how successful college students will be.