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One of the largest universities in the United States, The Ohio State University is a leading research university and the model for the state of Ohio's public higher education institutes.  Founded in 1870 as a land-grant university, it was ranked in 2006 as one of the top 20 public universities in the United States.  The main campus is located in Columbus, and regional campuses are located in Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark and Wooster.

The Ohio State University

Dr. Peters is Professor of Psychology, Director of the Decision Sciences Collaborative, Professor of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine (by courtesy) and Professor of Marketing & Logistics in the Fisher College of Business (by courtesy.) She conducts basic and applied research in judgment and decision making. She has worked extensively with the U.S. National Cancer Institute and FDA to advance the science of human decision making as it applies to health and health policy. She is former President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, former Chair of FDA’s Risk Communication Advisory Committee, and is a current member of the National Academies committee on the Science of Science Communication. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the Society of Experimental Psychology. She was the first American to receive the Jane Beattie Scientific Recognition Award, and she has been awarded an NIH Merit Award. Her research has been funded extensively by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.

In her research, Dr. Peters focuses on understanding the basic building blocks of human judgment and decision making. She is particularly interested in how affective, intuitive, and deliberative processes help people to make decisions in an increasingly complex world. She studies decision making as an interaction of characteristics of the decision situation and characteristics of the individual. She has three major strands of basic research. First, she studies how numbers are processed in judgment and decision making. In recent publications, Dr. Peters and colleagues have focused on how numbers critical to decisions are processed by individuals who differ in number ability (also called numeracy). A second central strand of research concerns how affect and emotion influence information processing and decisions. Affect appears to have multiple functions in judgment and decision processes (as information, as a common currency, as a spotlight on information, and as a direct motivator of behaviors). Third, she is interested in how information processing and decision making change in complex ways across the adult life span. In applied research, she is also generally interested in issues of risk perception and risk communication in health, financial, and environmental contexts, including how to present information to facilitate its comprehension and use.

Medical Decision-Making

Risk Perceptions

Judgement

Human Decision-Making

Affect and Information Processing

Numeracy

Faculty Profile

Google Scholar Citations

The chemicals in burnt toast and crispy fries won't kill you, but the calories might

Why climate change continues to be a tough sell

Smokers are more likely to quit if they see disgusting images of what smoking does

Why we don’t wear seat belts in cabs (even though we know better)

Do facts matter anymore in public policy? (op-ed)

Are you listening when we do the numbers?

Professor of Psychology, Director of the Decision Sciences Collaborative & Professor of Medicine | Department of Internal Medicine

Presentation of a commissioned paper by Ellen Peters, Ph.D. of Ohio State University at the July 18, 2013 meeting Health Literacy and Numeracy: A Workshop.

Health Literacy and Numeracy: A Workshop, Panel 1 -- Ellen Peters, Ph.D.

Ellen Peters, professor of psychology at The Ohio State University, talks about decision making and how emotions and thought are important factors to consider when forming judgments.

When Do We Tend to Make the Best Decisions?

Ellen Peters, Ohio State University, explains how complex information about medical risks can be presented in ways that make more sense to patients.

How can medical information best be presented?

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