Research
My research interests centre on judgment and decision making and reasoning in adults and children, including counterfactual thinking (‘if only’ thoughts about how things could have turned out differently) and causal reasoning. These interests feed into my current investigations of the relationship between reasoning and mathematical abilities (in collaboration with Dr Victoria Simms and Charli Campbell), as well as the cognitive processes involved in online risk taking, particularly in children and adolescents (in collaboration with Dr Michaela Gummerum).
My PhD students have piqued my interest in decision making under stress, which includes an examination of the training of firearms police officers (led by Faro) and the impact of stress on option generation (led by Kaur Braich).
My postdoctoral collaboration at the University of Reading with Prof Phil Beaman and Dr Rachel McCloy examined the recognition heuristic within the context of fast and frugal heuristics.
My postdoctoral collaboration at Queen’s University Belfast with Prof Teresa McCormack and University College London with Prof David Lagnado examined the development of causal reasoning. A presentation of some of this work can be viewed here.
I am a member of the Leicester Judgment and Decision Making Lab.
Websites
- ResearchGate profile
- Follow me on twitter
- Academia.edu profile
Funding
- Gummerum, M. & Frosch, C.A. (2020-2024). ESRC DTP Joint Studentship for the project ‘Promoting digital resilience in adolescence’.
- Pulford, B. D., Colman, A. M., & Frosch, C. A. (2019-2021). £39,064 (£214,045 FEC) awarded by the Leicester Judgment and Decision Making Endowment to study 'Confidence and Reasoning in Decisions and Games'.
- Pulford, B. D., Colman, A. M., & Frosch, C. A. (2019-2024). £44,795.83 awarded by the Leicester Judgment and Decision Making Endowment for the ‘LJDME Intern Programme’.
- Frosch, C. A., (2018-2019). £3500 awarded by the Experimental Psychology Society, Small Grants Scheme to study ‘Mathematics and Reasoning’.
- Pulford, B. D., Colman, A. M., & Frosch, C. A. (2016-2018). £26,039 (£134,293 FEC) awarded by the Leicester Judgment and Decision Making Endowment to study ‘Comparisons, Confidence, and Causality in Decision Making’.
- Egan, S. M., & Frosch, C. A. (2014). €734.05 awarded by Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Seed Funding Scheme to study ‘The role of causal status in blame assignments’.
- Frosch, C. A., (2013-2014). £2500 awarded by the Experimental Psychology Society, Small Grants Scheme to study ‘Counterfactual Thinking and Regulatory Focus in Self/Other Decision Making’.
- Egan, S. M., & Frosch, C. A. (2012). €1,101 awarded by Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Seed Funding Scheme for ‘The influence of cognitive factors in health related decision making’.
- Egan, S. M., & Frosch, C. A. (2010). €905.57 awarded by Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Seed Funding Scheme for ‘Counterfactual thinking and enablers’.
- Frosch, C. A. (2007). £85,556.80 (£104,264.58 FEC) awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council for a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship on ‘Cognitive processes in causal and counterfactual thinking’.
Postgraduate Supervision
I would be interested in supervising PhD study examining topics in adults or taking a developmental perspective relating to:
- Judgement and decision making
- Counterfactual thinking
- Risk taking
Learn more and apply for research degrees in the School of Psychology
Current & Previous supervision
- Jolyon Faro (co-supervised with Douglas Barrett) - Decision making and perception during high stress and high threat situations encountered by firearms officers. 2015 to date
- Dhipteen Kaur Braich (co-supervised with Briony Pulford) – ‘Option generation under stress’. 2016 to date
- Philippa Brown (co-supervised with Michaela Gummerum, University of Warwick) - ‘Promoting digital resilience in adolescence’ 2020 to date
Visiting students:
- Jesica Gomez-Sanchez (visiting from University of Granada, Oct 2017-Dec 2017 and Sep 2018-Nov 2018, Sept 2019 – Nov 2019)
- Francesco Peana (Erasmus internship 2018)
Undergraduate helpers:
- Heather Mathers
- Sara Yousaf
- Ryan Bell