About Me

I am a 4th year graduate student in the Social Psychology doctorate program at Rutgers University. I work with Dr. Gretchen Chapman in the Medical Decision Making (MDM) lab . I graduated from Bejing University with a Bachelor of Medicine in 2002, and obtained an M.S. in Basic Medical Research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2005.

Obviously, psychology is much more exciting than medicine to me. That's why I'm here!

Research interests

Decision Making with real-world applicatoins

• 100% of anything looks good? People seem to think that 100% something small (say, 100% of one coffee, 100% effectiveness against one virus) is more than xx% of the someting large (say, 10% of 10 coffees, 50% effective against two viruses), even if they are objectively idnetical.


• Naturalness bias ---preference for whatever is natural, even if it is identical or worse in effect than its unnatural alternative. My research distinguishes the instrumental (inferred functional superiority of natural things) and ideational reasons (moral or aesthetic appeal of being natural) behind the naturalness bias, and shows the importance of instrumental basis for the bias.


• How do people value life? Are all lives equally valuable, and if not, whose lives are more valuable? This is a painful, yet unavoidable question when it comes to prioritizing among disease victims (e.g. pandemic flu) under resource scarcity (e.g. vaccine). I study how lay people evaluate life, and how their use of metric in this evaluation is influenced by question framing (lives saved. vs. lives lost).

Self-Regulation

• People don't just want one thing, but often multiple things at the same time. How do people regulate multiple goals at the same time, especially when these goals conflict with each other? Most goal theories treat self-regulation as a single-goal process, but the pursuit of goals are not isolated, and studying self-regulation in the context of multiple, often conflicting goals would shed light on realistic mechanisms of goal pursuit.

Publications

Li, M., Vietri, J., Galvani, A. P. & Chapman, G.B. (in press) How do people value life? Psychological Science.

Li, M., & Chapman, G.B. (2009) "100% of anything looks good"—The appeal of one hundred percent. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16 (1),156-162.

Li, M., Eipers, P.G., Ni, N. & Morrow, C.D. (2006) HIV-1 designed to use different tRNAGln isoacceptors prefers to select tRNAThr for replication Virology Journal, 3:80  http://www.virologyj.com/content/3/1/80

Under Review

Bauch, C. T., Li, M., Chapman, G. B. & Galvani, A. P. Cervical screening adherence in era of HPV vaccination: how low is too low?  

Ibuka, Y., Chapman, G.B., Meyers, L. A., Li, M., & Galvani, A.P. The Dynamics of Risk Perceptions and Precautionary Behavior in Response to 2009 (H1N1) Pandemic Influenza.

Li, M. & Chapman, G.B. Instrumental and Ideational Bases for the Naturalness Bias.

Vietri, J., Li, M., Chapman, G.B., Basu, S., & Galvani, A.P. Attitudes towards HPV vaccination in parent-child dyads: Similarity and acknowledged difference.

In preparation

Li, M. & Chapman, G. B. Completely attractive: The power of 100% in unlikely places.

Ibuka, Y., Li, M., Vietri, J., Chapman, G.B. & Galvani, A.P. Vaccination Decision-Making When Interactions with Other Individuals are Allowed: Does the Free-riding Behavior Exist??

Vietri, J., Li, M., Chapman, G.B. & Galvani, A.P. Altruism and Free-riding in vaccination decisions.

Invited Talks

Framing matters: 100% effect & how life is valued. Institute of Psychology, Chinese National Academy of Science, Beijing, China. 2009.

Conference Presentations

Li, M., Chapman, G.B. & Galvani, A.P. (2010). Who should be saved?—it depends on how you ask! Poster to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference, Vegas, NV.

Li, M., Vietri, J., Galvani, A.P., Medlock, J. & Chapman, G.B. (2009). How do people value life? Poster presented at the Judgment and Decision Making Pre-conference during the 10th Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference, Tampa, FL.

Vietri, J., Li, M., Ibuka, Y., Galvani, A.P. & Chapman, G.B. (2008). Self-interest and Altruism in a Group Vaccination Game. Paper presented at the Graduate Student Conference on Experiments in Interactive Decision Making and Group Dynamics, Princeton, NJ.

Li, M. & Chapman, G.B. (2008). How do people value life? Poster presented at the 2008 Annual Conference for the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, Chicago, IL.

Chapman, G.B., Vietri, J., Li, M., Basu, S. & Galvani, A. (2008) Surrogate Decision Making and the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making, Philadelphia, PA.

Chapman, G.B., Vietri, J., Li, M., Basu, S. & Galvani, A.P. (2008) Risky decision making and the HPV vaccine. Paper presented at the “Cancer Vaccine for Girls?” Conference, Rutgers University. NJ.

Li, M. & Chapman, G.B. (2008) The Naturalness bias and religion. Poster presented at the 2008 Annual Conference for the Society of Psychological Science, Chicago, IL.

Li, M., Vietri, J. & Chapman, G.B. (2007) Free Riding and Altruism in Vaccination Decisions. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, California.

Li, M. & Chapman, G.B. (2007) The Appeal of Vaccination and the Psychology of Vaccination. Poster presented at the 2007 Annual Conference for the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, Long Beach, CA.

Li, M., Chapman, G.B., Thomas, D., Galvani, A.P. (2007) The psychology of vaccination: The appeal of immediacy and certainty. Poster presented at the 2007 Annual Conference for the Society of Psychological Science, Washington, DC.

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last updated Nov 2, 2009