Dr Briony Pulford

Research

• I am a judgement and decision making researcher. My interests are in overconfidence, uncertainty, the communication and perception of confidence, cooperation, team reasoning and ambiguity aversion. My PhD 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 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 pedagogic research studying the personality factors that influence students’ confidence and beliefs about their academic abilities, predictors of self-handicapping in students, and communication and advice giving in virtual learning environments.
• Member of the Leicester Judgment and Decision Making Lab.
• 2003-2005 I was a full time researcher on the Economic and Social Research Council project "Confidence in Interactive Decisions"

• Recent Publications

• Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., & Lawrence, C. L. (in press). Explaining strategic coordination: Cognitive hierarchy theory, strong Stackelberg reasoning, and team reasoning. Decision, 1(1).  Download the strategy generator software.

  Gold, N., Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (in press). Your money or your life: Comparing judgments in trolley problems involving economic and emotional harms, injury and death. Economics and Philosophy.

• Colman, A. M., & Pulford, B. D. (2012). Problems and pseudo-problems in understanding cooperation in social dilemmas. Psychological Inquiry, 23, 39-47.

• Colman, A. M., Browning, L., & Pulford, B. D. (2012). Spontaneous similarity discrimination in the evolution of cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 299, 162-171.    Video   Media interest

• Gold, N., Colman, A. M., & Pulford, B. D. (2011). Normative theory in decision making and moral reasoning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(5), 256-257.

  Pulford, B. D. (2011). The influence of advice in a Virtual Learning Environment.  British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(1), 31-39.

• 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.

• Pulford, B. D. (2009). Is luck on my side? Optimism, pessimism, and ambiguity aversion. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(6), 1079-1087.

  Colman, A. M., Pulford, B. D., & Rose, J. (2008). Collective rationality in interactive decisions: Evidence for team reasoning. Acta Psychologica, 128(2), 387-397.

  Bolger, F., Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (2008). Market entry decisions: Effects of absolute and relative confidence. Experimental Psychology, 55(2), 113-120.

  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.

  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.

  Pulford, B. D., & Colman, A. M. (2007). Ambiguous games: Evidence for strategic ambiguity aversion. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60(8),  1083-1100.

• A complete list is on my publications page.

• Grants

• 2011-16: £100,000 awarded by the Leicester Judgment and Decision Making Endowment to Pulford, B. D. & Colman A.M. for research on ‘Coordination, Judgment, and Decision Making’.

• 2010-12: Arts and Humanities Research Council: £125,151 (£151,217 FEC) awarded to Gold, N., Colman, A. M., & Pulford, B. D. for a study of "Framing Effects in Ethical Dilemmas".
• 2010: Experimental Psychology Society Small Grants Scheme. £2,000 awarded to B. D. Pulford to study 'The Influence of Perceived Luck on Decision Making'.
• 2009: Nuffield Foundation Social Sciences Small Grants Scheme: £7,272 awarded to Colman, A. M., & Pulford, B. D. for a study of "Evolution of Cooperation through Similarity Recognition".
• 2007-08: British Academy grant for £6,587 for ‘An examination of the domain-specificity and predictive validity of confidence measures’ with Dr Ray Randall. 
• 2003-05: £121,563 awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council for research into "Confidence in Interactive Decisions" with Andrew M. Colman and Fergus Bolger (Grant No. RES-000-23-0154).
• 2002-05: The communication and influence of confidence and uncertainty. University of Wolverhampton research support unit.  £21,000 to fund a PhD studentship. 
• 2001: £4,915 awarded by the University of Wolverhampton Sabbatical Fund to investigate confidence, decision making and the Ellsberg Paradox (ambiguity aversion).
• 1992-95: Economic and Social Research Council Studentship for research into overconfidence.

• PhD students

• Caroline Wesson, 'The communication and influence of confidence and uncertainty'. University of Wolverhampton, 2002-2005.
• Daniela Rudloff, 'Preference not performance: Perception of presentation formats'. University of Leicester, 2006-2011.
• Sven Rudloff, 'Affect and Cognition in Risk Perception'. University of Leicester, 2008-2011
• Poonam Gill, 'The Curious Case of the Sunk Cost Effect'. University of Leicester, 2009-date
• Rebecca Hogan, 'Advisor confidence and economic decision making'. University of Leicester, 2010-date

Follow this link to see Books, Chapters and reviews and this link to see Conference Talks