Nicholas Epley, Ph.D.

Nicholas Epley, Ph.D., is the John Templeton Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavior Science and Director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He studies social cognition—how thinking people think about other thinking people—to understand why smart people so routinely misunderstand each other.  He teaches an ethics and wellbeing course to MBA students called “Designing a Good Life.” Epley’s research has been featured by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, WIRED, and NPR, among many others, and has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation.

Epley is the recipient of many awards including the 2008 Theoretical Innovation Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the 2011 Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the American Psychological Association, the 2015 Book Prize for the Promotion of Social and Personality Science, and the 2018 Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. He was named a “professor to watch” by the Financial Times, one of the “World’s Best 40 under 40 Business School Professors” by Poets and Quants, and one of the 100 Most Influential in Business Ethics by Ethisphere.

Epley is the author of the 2014 book Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want, and the forthcoming book A Little More Social: How Small Habits Can Make Us Happier, Healthier, and Better Connected.