Kristine Cho

I am a Behavioral Marketing Ph.D. Candidate at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. My research focus is on judgment and decision-making.

Specifically, I am interested in conversational inference—when and why people infer more than the literal meaning of a statement—and how this impacts decision-making, along with implications for marketing practices. I am also interested in cognitive heuristics and biases, exploring both novel ones and normative explanations for existing ones. Finally, I am committed to improving open science practices.

You can contact me at kristine_cho@berkeley.edu.

I am on the 2026-2027 academic job market.

Research Interests

Conversational Inference — People often infer more from a statement than its literal meaning. I am interested in when and why this occurs, as well as implications for marketing.

Probability — I am interested in potential normative explanations for existing cognitive biases and heuristics, as well as finding new ones.

Open Science — I am interested in advocating for and improving open science practices, including preregistration and replications.

Current Research Projects

People dislike products that advertise an attribute that is positive but that goes without saying (e.g., water being gluten-free)

People believe that someone with popular but well-attested tastes cannot be an expert (e.g., if they say they like Picasso)

People prefer to continue on a route that they know is longer than retrace their steps to take a shorter route

People’s preference for premium products change depending on how the relative prices between options are framed

Liking scales may not accurately measure preferences for probabilistic options