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© Stefan Herzog

Herzog, Stefan

Senior Research Scientist
Adaptive Rationality
+49 30 82406-406
    • Publications

    Main Focus

    Head of Research Area Boosting Decision Making

    See also my full CV.

    I study how to boost human judgment and decision making (scienceofboosting.org) by investigating human and machine behavior—drawing on psychology, cognitive science, AI, collective intelligence, and computational social science. I head the research area "boosting decision making" (see also scienceofboosting.org), am a senior research scientist, and serve as one of the director’s deputies at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. I actively engage in science communication, policy advising, and applied problem solving.

    My current research areas are:

    1. Hybrid human–AI decision making and collective intelligence
    2. Risks and benefits of digitalization, AI, & new media: Systems and behavioral interventions for resilient citizens, organizations, & societies
    3. Boosting: Improving human judgment and decision making in individuals and teams

    My work addresses key challenges facing individuals, organizations, and societies: building better and more trustworthy hybrid human–AI teams, ensuring AI supports (rather than erodes) human competences, and strengthening resilience against misinformation, manipulation, and risks of generative AI.

    I am committed to interdisciplinary research, open and reproducible science, research-led teaching, and building inclusive, equitable research environments. I have published in top international peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Annual Review of Psychology, Nature Human Behaviour, Perspectives in Psychological Science, PNAS, Psychological Science, Science Advances, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences) and have been featured in Science, Scientific American, and cited in academic and popular books, including Superforecasting by Tetlock and Gardner. In 2010 I received the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

    I have organized and presented at national and international workshops, symposia and conferences and have been invited to give talks and keynotes at academic institutions in, e.g., the US, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK (incl. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, University of California, London School of Economics, ETH Zürich, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods).

    I studied psychology (social, economic, and decision psychology), management (organizational science and marketing), and computer science, and received my PhD in psychology from the University of Basel in 2009.

    Curriculum Vitae

    Full CV: PDF

    • 2021 – Senior Research Scientist and Head of Research "Area Boosting Decision Making" | Center for Adaptive Rationality (ARC), Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin
    • 2012 – 2021 Researcher | Center for Adaptive Rationality (ARC), Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin; since 2019 Head of Research Area "Boosting Decision Making"
    • 2009 – 2012 Researcher | Cognitive and Decision Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Basel
    • 2009 Dr. phil. (summa cum laude/with highest praise) | University of Basel, Switzerland
    • 2005 M. Sc. Psychology (summa cum laude/with highest praise) | University of Basel, Switzerland
    • 2003 B. Sc. Psychology (magna cum laude/with great praise) | University of Basel, Switzerland

    Five selected, recent publications

    * shared authorships / equal contribution  |  $ senior authorship

    1. Burton, J. W., Herzog, S. M., & Lorenz-Spreen, P. (2026). Simple changes to content curation algorithms affect the beliefs people form in a collaborative filtering experiment. Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’26, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790602 (CHI 2026 Honourable Mention Award = top 5% of completed submissions)
    2. Herzog, S. M., & Hertwig, R. (2025). Boosting: Empowering citizens with behavioral science. Annual Review of Psychology, 76, 851–881. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-020924-124753
    3. Zöller, N., Berger, J., Lin, I., Fu, N., Komarneni, J., Barabucci, G., Laskowski, K., Shia, V., Harack, B., Chu, E. A., Trianni, V., Kurvers*$, R. H. J. M., & Herzog*§, S. M. (2025). Human-AI collectives most accurately diagnose clinical vignettes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(24) e2426153122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2426153122
    4. Herzog, S. M., & Franklin, M. (2024). Boosting human competences with interpretable and explainable artificial intelligence. Decision, 11(4), 493–510. https://doi.org/10.1037/dec0000250 | postprint: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000F-FEE4-2
    5. Geers, M., Fischer, H., Lewandowsky, S., & Herzog$, S. M. (2024). The political (a)symmetry of metacognitive insight into detecting misinformation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(8), 1961–1972. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001600

    Ten selected peer-reviewed publications

    * shared authorships / equal contribution  |  $ senior authorship

    1. Burton, J. W., Herzog, S. M., & Lorenz-Spreen, P. (2026). Simple changes to content curation algorithms affect the beliefs people form in a collaborative filtering experiment. Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’26, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790602 (CHI 2026 Honourable Mention Award = top 5% of completed submissions)
    2. Herzog, S. M., & Hertwig, R. (2025). Boosting: Empowering citizens with behavioral science. Annual Review of Psychology, 76, 851–881. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-020924-124753
    3. Zöller, N., Berger, J., Lin, I., Fu, N., Komarneni, J., Barabucci, G., Laskowski, K., Shia, V., Harack, B., Chu, E. A., Trianni, V., Kurvers*$, R. H. J. M., & Herzog*§, S. M. (2025). Human-AI collectives most accurately diagnose clinical vignettes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(24) e2426153122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2426153122
    4. Herzog, S. M., & Franklin, M. (2024). Boosting human competences with interpretable and explainable artificial intelligence. Decision, 11(4), 493–510. https://doi.org/10.1037/dec0000250 | postprint: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000F-FEE4-2
    5. Geers, M., Fischer, H., Lewandowsky, S., & Herzog$, S. M. (2024). The political (a)symmetry of metacognitive insight into detecting misinformation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(8), 1961–1972. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001600
    6. Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Nuzzolese, A. G., Russo, A., Barabucci, G., Herzog, S. M., & Trianni, V. (2023). Automating hybrid collective intelligence in open-ended medical diagnostics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(34), e2221473120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2221473120
    7. Kozyreva, A., Herzog, S. M., Lewandowsky, S., Hertwig, R., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Leiser, M., & Reifler, J. (2023). Resolving content moderation dilemmas between free speech and harmful misinformation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(7), e2210666120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2210666120
    8. Analytis*, P. P., Barkoczi*, D., & Herzog*$, S. M. (2018). Social learning strategies for matters of taste. Nature Human Behavior, 2, 415–424. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0343-2
    9. Herzog, S. M., & Hertwig, R. (2014). Harnessing the wisdom of the inner crowd. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 504–506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.06.009
    10. Herzog, S. M., & Hertwig, R. (2009). The wisdom of many in one mind: Improving individual judgments with dialectical bootstrapping. Psychological Science, 20, 231–237. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02271.x
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