Research

Research Priorities: Social norms, Social epistemology, Social learning, Behavioral decision science, Epistemic game theory

Cristina Bicchieri is an Italian-America philosopher. Her main research, both theoretical and applied, involves the nature and dynamics of social norms. For Bicchieri, it is crucial not only to understand how norms emerge or can be changed, but also the mechanisms of social learning that underlie such processes. Applications to public policy cover both public health issues such as behavioral changes induced by pandemics as well as changes needed with respect to environmental challenges such as global warming.

Her primary research focus is on judgment and decision making with special interest in decisions about fairness, trust, and cooperation, and how expectations affect behavior. A second research focus examines the evolution of social norms, especially norms of fairness and cooperation. A third, earlier research focus has been the epistemic foundations of game theory and how changes in information affects rational choices and solutions.

In her most recent work, Bicchieri has designed behavioral experiments aimed at testing several hypotheses based on the theory of social norms. The experimental results show that most subjects have a conditional preference for following pro-social norms. Manipulating their expectations causes major behavioral changes (i.e., from fair to unfair choices, from cooperation to defection, etc.). One of the conclusions can be drawn is that there are no such things as stable dispositions or unconditional preferences (to be fair, reciprocate, cooperate, and so on). Another is that policymakers who want to induce pro-social behavior have to work on changing people's expectations about how other people behave in similar situations. These results have major consequences for understanding of moral behavior and the construction of better normative theories, grounded on what people can in fact do.

The nature and dynamics of social norms studies how norms may emerge and become stable, why an established norm may suddenly be abandoned, how is it possible that inefficient or unpopular norms survive, and what motivates people to obey norms. In order to answer some of these questions, Bicchieri has combined evolutionary and game-theoretic tools with models of decision making drawn from cognitive and social psychology. For example, Bicchieri uses her theory of context-dependent preferences to build more realistic evolutionary models of the emergence of pro-social norms of fairness and reciprocity.

Career

• since 2021 Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• since 2020 Director, Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• since 2019 Director, Master of Behavioral and Decision Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• since 2006 Department of Legal Studies, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 2005-2012 Carol and Michael Lowenstein Term Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 1994-2005 Professor, Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
• 1994-2005 History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
• 1989-1994 Associate Professor, Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
• 1990-1994 History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
• 1986-1989 Assistant Professor, Philosophy, University of Notre Dame du Lac, Notre Dame, USA
• 1984-1986 Assistant Professor, Economics, Barnard College and Columbia University, New York City, USA

Functions

• since 2005 Chair, Penn Program on Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• since 2017 Member, Steering Committee, Social Epistemology Network
• since 2014 Director, Penn Social Norms Group (Penn SONG), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• since 2014 Founder and Director, Behavioral Ethics Lab (BeLab), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 2010-2015 Director, Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• since 2011 Member, Advisory Board, Synthese
• 2011 Director, XIV Summer School on Economics and Philosophy: Experimental Philosophy and Economics, University of the Basque Country and the Urrutia Elejalde Foundation, San Sebastián, Spain
• since 2008 Member, Advisory Board, School of Government, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali “Guido Carli” (LUISS University), Rome, Italy
• 2011 Member, Advisory Board: 14TH Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Nancy, France
• 2008 Director, XI Summer School on Economics and Philosophy: Social Norms. University of the Basque Country and the Urrutia Elejalde Foundation, San Sebastián, Spain
• 2007 Member, Scientific Committee, LCD'07: 1st workshop on Logics and Collective Decision-making, Erasmus International Institute MSH Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Lille, France
• since 2006 Member, Advisory Board, The Zicklin Center For Business Ethics Research, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 2006 Chair, Programme Committee, Philosophy of Science Association (PSA)
• 2004 Panelist, Human and Social Dynamics, National Science Foundation (NSF), USA
• since 2002 Member, Advisory Board, Philosophical Gourmet Report
• 2004 Programme Committee, PSA
• 2003 Programme Committee, TARK IX (Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge) Conference, Bloomington, USA
• 2003 Program Committee, 2003 Spring Symposium on Game Theoretic and Decision Theoretic Agents (Melbourne, Australia), American Association for Artificial Intelligence, USA
• 2001 Programme Committee, 2001 Spring Symposium on Game Theoretic and Decision Theoretic Agents (Stanford, USA), American Association for Artificial Intelligence, USA
• 2000 Chair, Programme Committee, Workshop on The Logic and Strategy of Distributed Agents (Trento, Italy), NSF, USA and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
• 2000 Panelist, Computational Social Science, NSF, USA
• 1998 Programme Committee, TARK VII Conference, Chicago, USA
• 1996 Programme Committee, Workshop on “Norms, Obligations and Conventions”, Second International Conference on Multiagent Systems, Kyoto, Japan
• 1995 Symposium Chair, Central Division Meetings (Chicago, USA), American Philosophical Association, USA
• 1994 Chair, Symposium on Games, Explanations, Authority, and Justification (New Orleans, USA), Meeting, PSA
• 1994 Chair, Decision Theory Symposium, Central Division Meetings, American Philosophical Association, USA
• 1992 Programme Committee, Meeting, PSA
• 1992 Chair, Rational Deliberation Symposium, Meeting, PSA
• 1992 Co-Organizer, Second Workshop on Knowledge, Belief, and Strategic Interaction, Castiglioncello, Italy
• 1990 Programme Committee, TARK III Conference, Pacific Grove, USA
• 1989 Co-Organizer, First Workshop on Knowledge, Belief, and Strategic Interaction, Castiglioncello, Italy
• 1988 Chair, Symposium on Game Theory (Evanston, USA), Meeting, PSA

Projects

• 2018-2020 Principal Investigator, Grant “Freedom, Norms and Social Change”, Koch Foundation, USA
• 2016-2021 Principal Investigator, Grant “India: Norms and Networks in Sanitation”, Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA
• 2017-2018 Principal Investigator, WASH Grant, (Several new training programs in Nepal, India, Africa and South America), UNICEF
• 2015-2016 Principal Investigator, Pakistan Grant, UNICEF
• since 2017 Principal Investigator, Anti-corruption Project in Nigeria, Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs and Department for International Development (DFID), UK
• 1998-2001 Principal Investigator “Game-theoretic Foundations for Multi-agent Systems”, Computation and Social Systems Programme, NSF, USA
• 1995-1997 Principal Investigator “Coordination and Cooperation among Tactical Picture Agents”, Office of Naval Research, USA
• 1987-1989 Principal Investigator “Epistemic Foundations of Game Theory, History and Philosophy of Science”, NSF, USA
• 2013-2015 Co-Principal Investigator, Grant “Autonomy and Liberalism, an Interdisciplinary Search for the Ideal Society”, John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia, USA
• 2010-2015 Co-Principal Investigator, Grant to develop a training programme on “Advances in Social Norms and Social Change”, UNICEF
• 2009-2011 Co-Principal Investigator, Research Project “Formal Approaches to Social Epistemology”, Internationalization Grant, Dutch Research Council (NWO), The Netherlands

Honours and memberships

• since 2020 Member, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Germany
• since 2018 Distinguished Research Fellow, Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 2015 Silver Jubilee Lectures, I. Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India
• since 2016 Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
• 2007 Cavaliere Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Knigthood), Italy
• 2015 Pufendorf Medal, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
• 2012 Renee Descartes Lectures, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
• 2001-2002 Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Studies), Berlin, Germany