Senior Researcher
Dr. Michael Zürn
Dr. Michael Zürn is Senior Researcher in Applied Behavioral Science at the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions.
He holds a keen interest in consumers, comparisons, and the self. The fate of all products hinges on the market decisions of the consumers. To truly understand these decisions, the underlying psychological processes must be examined. Comparisons are particularly relevant here, because they are not only a relatively simple form of judgment, but they are also often self-relevant (e.g., we sometimes feel particularly clever when we get something at a lower price than we expected).
His research findings have been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, the Journal of Economic Psychology, Cognition & Emotion and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, among others.
Current topics:
- Sustainability
- Brands & Branding
- Consumer Carbon Management
Short CV
- Senior Researcher at the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions
- Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Social Cognition Center Cologne (SoCCCo) and the Center for Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB) of the University of Cologne
- PhD (Psychology) with a Focus on Behavioral Economics and Social Cognition
- Doctoral Researcher at the Chair of Social Psychology (Prof. Dr. Fritz Strack) at the Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg
- Master in International Business Strategies at INSEEC Paris
- Diploma in Economics at Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg
Selected publications
- Zürn, M., & Topolinski, S. (2017). When trust comes easy: Articulatory fluency increases transfers in the trust game. Journal of Economic Psychology, 61, 74–86.
- Topolinski, S., Zürn, M., & Schneider, I. K. (2015). What's in and what's out in branding? A novel articulation effect for brand names. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 585
- Zürn, M. K., Gerten, J., & Topolinski, S. (2021). Maybe Favors: How to get More Good Deeds Done. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.
- Ugular, P., Posten, A., & Zürn, M. K. (2021). Interpersonal Closeness Impairs Decision Memory. Social Psychology.
- Gerten, J, Zürn, M. K., & Topolinski, S. (2021). The Price of Predictability: Estimating Inconsistency Premiums in Social Interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.