C.V.

Year: 2010

The best day to blog

Q: What is the best day to launch a blog post? A: Well, as is usually the case,  it depends on who you ask. I Googled it, and check out what showed up back-to-back: Hmmh. I am going to split the difference and make focal posts on Wednesdays. I will sporadically post other days, if […]

Why study humor? Because it makes people happier, healthier, and…sexier

I want to discuss why it is important to answer a question that has puzzled philosophers, scientists, and comedians since the dawn of Western thought: What makes things funny? To help answer this (tough) question, I recently started the Humor Research Lab (HuRL) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. HuRL is an interdisciplinary research lab […]

Emotional Accounting Part 2: The Laundering Effect

A second video related to my previous post on Emotional Accounting goes into depth about the “Laundering Effect”: Download the paper HERE. Levav, J., & McGraw, A.P. (2009). Emotional accounting: How feelings about money influence consumer choice.  Journal of Marketing Research, 46, 66-80.

Emotional Accounting Part 1 (complementing mental accounting)

My good friend, Jonathan Levav, and I recently published a paper in the Journal of Marketing Research that examines how people’s feelings about money influence their consumer choices.  The abstract pretty much says it all: Mental accounting posits that people track their expenditures using cognitive categories or “mental accounts.” The authors propose that this cognitive […]

Invitation to Peter McGraw’s TedxBoulder talk: “What makes things funny?”

On Saturday, August 7th – starting at 4 pm, I will be participating in TedxBoulder at Chautauqua Auditorium (http://tedxboulder.com). The talk will be an overview of my humor research. And yes, I will be answering the question of what makes things funny. Watch out for the “frown.” Also, check out, TEDxBoulder: Speakers to bring diverse […]

Peter McGraw launches his blog – finally.

Good people, After too much planning, I am finally launching my blog — a small (but deep) voice in a sea of a few hundred million blogs.  I know I *should* post something every day, but given my busy pre-tenure schedule, I suspect that once a week is a more reasonable goal. Q: What will […]