Research
How do people tend to talk to each other? How should they? Using experimental and computational methods across hundreds of thousands of real conversations, Professor Brooks’ conversation research examines people’s conversational behavior and the psychology that underlies it.
CATEGORIES:
Research Articles
Research In Progress
Course Materials
Research Resources
Research Articles
A practical guide to conversation research: How to study what people say to each other
2023 | Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science
Yeomans, M., Collins, H., Abi-Esber, N., Boland, K., & Brooks, A.W. | PDF
Conveying and detecting listening during live conversation
2023 | Journal of Experimental Psychology; General
Collins, H., Minson, J., Kristal, A., & Brooks, A.W. | PDF
Relational diversity in social portfolios predicts well-being
2022 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Collins, H., Hagerty, S., Norton, M.I., Quoidbach, J., & Brooks, A.W. | PDF
Status variance: Higher variance in one’s status across groups improves interpersonal outcomes but harms subjective well-being
2021 | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 165, 56-75.
Fernandes, C., Yu, S., Howell, T., Kilduff, G., Pettit, N. & Brooks, A.W | PDF
Worry at work: How organizational culture promotes anxiety
2021 | Research in Organizational Behavior, 40, 100-124.
Yip, J.A., Levine, E.E., Brooks, A.W., Schweitzer, M.E. | PDF
The Conversational Circumplex: Identifying, prioritizing, and pursuing informational and relational motives in conversation
2021 | Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 293-302.
Yeomans, M., Schweitzer, M.E., & Brooks, A.W. | PDF
The many minds problem: Disclosure in dyadic vs. group conversation
2020 | Current Opinion in Psychology, 31, 22-27.
Cooney*, G., Mastroianni*, A., Abi-Esber*, N., & Brooks, A.W. | PDF
Seeker beware: The costs of ignoring advice
2019 | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 150, 83-100.
Blunden, H., Logg, J., Brooks, A.W., John, L., & Gino, F. | PDF
Mitigating envy: Why successful individuals should reveal their failure
2019 | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(4), 667-687.
Brooks, A.W., Huang, K., Abi-Esber, N., Hall, B., Buell, R., & Huang, L. | PDF
It helps to ask: The cumulative benefits of asking follow-up questions
2019 | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(6), 1139-1144.
Yeomans, M., Brooks, A.W., Huang, K., Gino, F., & Minson, J. | PDF
It doesn’t hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking
2017 | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430-452.
Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A.W., Gino, F., & Minson, J. | PDF
Risky business: When humor increases and decreases status
2016 | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112 (3), 431-455.
Bitterly, B.T., Brooks, A.W., & Schweitzer, M.E. | PDF
Managing perceptions of distress at work: Reframing emotion as passion
2016 | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 1-12.
Wolf, E.B., Lee, J.J., Sah, S., & Brooks, A.W. | PDF
Anxious and egocentric: How specific emotions influence perspective taking
2015 | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(2), 374-391.
Todd, A.R., Forstmann, M., Burgmer, P., Brooks, A.W., & Galinsky, A.D. | PDF
A “present” for the future: The unexpected value of rediscovery
2014 | Psychological Science, 25(10), 1851-1860.
Zhang, T., Kim, T., Brooks, A.W., Gino, F., & Norton, M.I. | PDF
Investors prefer entrepreneurial ventures pitched by attractive men
2014 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(12), 4427-4431.
Brooks, A.W., Huang, L., Kearney, S.W., & Murray, F. | PDF
Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement
2014 | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144-1158.
Brooks, A.W. | PDF
I’m sorry about the rain! Superfluous apologies demonstrate empathic concern and increase trust
2013 | Social Psychology and Personality Science, 5(4), 467-474.
Brooks, A.W., Dai, H., & Schweitzer, M.E. | PDF
Can Nervous Nelly negotiate? How anxiety causes negotiators to make low first offers, exit early, and earn less profit
2011 | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 43-54.
Brooks, A.W. & Schweitzer, M.E. | PDF
How implicit beliefs influence trust recovery
2010 | Psychological Science, 21(5), 645-648.
Haselhuhn, M., Schweitzer, M.E., & Wood, A. | PDF
Research In Progress
Feeling seen: How leader eye gaze engenders psychological safety, participation, and voice
Abi-Esber, N., Brooks, A.W., & Ethan Burris.
Topic preference detection in conversation: A novel approach to understand perspective taking
Yeomans, M. & Brooks, A.W.
The power of preparation: Brainstorming flexible topics before conversations begin
Abi-Esber, N., Yeomans, M., Berger, J., & Brooks, A.W.
How verbal, nonverbal, and prosodic conversational cues mislead interpersonal inference
Abi-Esber, N., Mastroianni, A., & Brooks, A.W.
Boomerasking: Answering your own questions
Brooks. A.W., Hauser, R., Yeomans, M., & Norton, M.I.
The language of parole hearings
Donnelly, G., Collins, H., & Brooks, A.W.
Backhanded compliments: How negative comparisons undermine flattery
Sezer, O., Prinsloo, E., Brooks, A.W., & Norton, M.I.
Course Materials
Irrationality in Action
2023 | Harvard Business School Exercise.
Brooks, Alison Wood, Michael I. Norton, and Oliver Hauser. | LINK
SIMmersion: Immersed in Crucial Conversations
2022 | Harvard Business School Case.
Brooks, Alison Wood and Julian Zlatev. | LINK
Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights
2020 | Harvard Business School Case 9-921-015.
Brooks, Alison Wood and Trevor Spelman. | LINK
The Boss Has the Wrong Idea: Confidential Role Material for Julia Smith
2020 | Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-053.
Coffman, Katherine B., Alison Wood Brooks, Judith A. Clair, Katherine Chen, Manuela Collis, and Kathleen L. McGinn. | LINK
The Boss Has the Wrong Idea: Confidential Role Material for Lee Clancy
2020 | Harvard Business School Teaching Note 920-053.
Coffman, Katherine B., Alison Wood Brooks, Judith A. Clair, Katherine Chen, Manuela Collis, and Kathleen L. McGinn. | LINK
Harvard Men’s Soccer
2017 | Harvard Business School Case 918-011 and Teaching Note 918-029.
Brooks, Alison Wood and Katherine B. Coffman. | LINK
La Ceiba: Navigating Microfinance and Relationships in Honduras (A)
2017 | Harvard Business School Case 918-014 and Teaching Note 918-016.
Exley, Christine, Beshears, John, and Alison Wood Brooks. | LINK
La Ceiba: Navigating Microfinance and Relationships in Honduras (B)
2017 | Harvard Business School Case 918-015 and Teaching Note 918-016.
Exley, Christine, Beshears, John, and Alison Wood Brooks. | LINK
Advika Consulting Services: Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Human Capital
2016 | Harvard Business School Case 916-033 and Teaching Note 918-038.
Brooks, Alison Wood, Julia Lee, Francesca Gino, and Bradley Staats. | LINK
Research Resources
Text Analyzer
2020 | An easy-to-use suite of lexical analyses including LDA topic modeling
Jonah Berger, Garrick Sherman, Lyle Ungar | LINK
Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)
2017 | A portable audio recorder that intermittently records snippets of ambient sounds
Matthias Mehl | PDF
The Lexical Suite
2017 | The Lexical Suite analyzes people's language in order to understand their underlying opinions.
Matt Rocklage, Russ Fazio, Derek Rucker, Loran Nordgren, Sharlene He | LINK