Research

My research explores consumer behavior in the online world using insights and methods from marketing, psychology, and computational social science. I have two main lines of research. The first addresses consumer trust, such as interventions that help consumers critically evaluate information while maintaining trust in credible sources—a challenge for policymakers and platform operators alike. My second line of research focuses on consumer autonomy and explores the tension between personalization and manipulation in digital marketing. I draw on a range of empirical methods, including surveys, online experiments, field studies, secondary data analyses, and combinations thereof.

Consumer Trust

• Geers, Michael, Helen Fischer, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Stefan M. Herzog, “The Political (A)symmetry of Metacognitive Insight into Detecting Misinformation,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2024, 153(8), 1961–1972. [ABCD: A*]
• Geers, Michael, Briony Swire-Thompson, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Stefan M. Herzog, Anastasia Kozyreva, and Ralph Hertwig, “The Online Misinformation Engagement Framework,” Current Opinion in Psychology, 2024, 55, 101739.
• Kozyreva, Anastasia, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Stefan M. Herzog, Ullrich K.H. Ecker, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ralph Hertwig, Ayesha Ali, Joe Bak-Coleman, Sarit Barzilai, Melisa Basol, Adam J. Berinsky, Cornelia Betsch, John Cook, Lisa K. Fazio, Michael Geers, Andrew M. Guess, Haifeng Huang, Horacio Larreguy, Rakoen Maertens, Folco Panizza, Gordon Pennycook, David G. Rand, Steve Rathje, Jason Reifler, Philipp Schmid, Mark Smith, Briony Swire-Thompson, Paula Szewach, Sander van der Linden, and Sam Wineburg, “Toolbox of Individual-Level Interventions Against Online Misinformation,” Nature Human Behaviour, 2024, 8, 1044–1052. [JQ4: 4]
• Fazio, Lisa K., David G. Rand, Stephan Lewandowsky, Mark Susmann, Adam J. Berinsky, Andrew M. Guess, Panayiota Kendeou, Benjamin Lyons, Joanne Miller, Eryn Newman, Gordon Pennycook, Briony Swire-Thompson, and Building a Better Toolkit Team (incl. Michael Geers), “Combating Misinformation: A Megastudy of Nine Interventions Designed to Reduce the Sharing of and Belief in False and Misleading Headlines,” Working Paper.
• Straub, Vincent J., Jason W. Burton, Michael Geers, and Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, “Public Attitudes Towards Social Media Field Experiments,” Scientific Reports, 2024, 14(1), 26110.
• Sultan, Mubashir, Alan N. Tump, Michael Geers, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Stefan M. Herzog, and Ralf H.J.M. Kurvers, “Time Pressure Reduces Misinformation Discrimination Ability But Does Not Alter Response Bias,” Scientific Reports, 2022, 12(1), 1–12.
• Roozenbeek, Jon, Rakoen Maertens, Stefan M. Herzog, Michael Geers, Ralf H.J.M. Kurvers, Mubashir Sultan, and Sander van der Linden, “Susceptibility to Misinformation Is Consistent Across Question Framings and Response Modes and Better Explained by Myside Bias and Partisanship than Analytical Thinking,” Judgment and Decision Making, 2022, 17(3), 547–573. [ABCD: A]

Consumer Autonomy

• Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp, Michael Geers, Thorsten Pachur, Ralph Hertwig, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Stefan M. Herzog, “Boosting People’s Ability to Detect Microtargeted Advertising,” Scientific Reports, 2021, 11(1), 1–9.
• Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp, Ruben C. Arslan, Anastasia Kozyreva, Briony Swire-Thompson, Michael Geers, Stefan M. Herzog, and Ralph Hertwig, “Real-Time Assessment of Motives for Sharing and Creating Content Among Highly Active Twitter Users,” Working Paper.
• Geers, Michael, “Linking Lab and Field Research,” Nature Reviews Psychology, 2023, 2(8), 458.