Areas of Expertise
Consumer Behavior, Judgment & Decision Making, Behavioral Economics, Cognitive Psychology, Experimental Philosophy
Academic Degrees
- PhD in psychology and social policy, Princeton University
- MA, Princeton University
- BA, University of Chicago
Awards, Honors & Certificates
- Association for Psychological Science “Rising Start” (2013)
- Society for Judgement and Decision Making Hillel Einhorn Award (2012)
Selected Publications
- Litovsky, Y., Loewenstein, G., Horn, S., and Olivola, C. Y. (2022). Loss aversion, the endowment effect, and gain-loss framing shape preferences for non-instrumental information. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(34), e2202700119.
- Givi, J., and Olivola, C. Y. (2020). How do I like my chances (to unfold)? Why perceived scarcity and anticipated hope lead consumers to prefer increasing probabilities of obtaining a resource. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 5(4), 470–484.
- Olivola, C. Y. (2018). The interpersonal sunk-cost effect. Psychological Science, 29(7), 1072–1083.
- Read, D., Olivola, C. Y., and Hardisty, D. J. (2017). The value of nothing: Asymmetric attention to opportunity costs drives intertemporal decision making. Management Science, 63(12), 4277–4297.
- Olivola, C. Y., and Wang, S. W. (2016). Patience auctions: The impact of time vs. money bidding on elicited discount rates. Experimental Economics, 19(4), 864–885.
- Olivola, C. Y., and Shafir, E. (2013). The martyrdom effect: When pain and effort increase prosocial contributions. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26(1), 91–105.
- Oppenheimer, D. M., and Olivola, C. Y. (Eds.). (2011). The science of giving: Experimental approaches to the study of charity. Taylor and Francis.
- Sussman, A. B., and Olivola, C. Y. (2011). Axe the tax: Taxes are disliked more than equivalent costs. Journal of Marketing Research, 48, S91–S101.
- Olivola, C. Y., and Sagara, N. (2009). Distributions of observed death tolls govern sensitivity to human fatalities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(52), 22151–22156.
Edited on September 19, 2025