Valerie Reyna
Professor
2007
HDWeb Bio Page
Current Activities
Current Professional Activities
Associate Editor, Psychological Science
Associate Editor, Developmental Review
Action Editor, Memory
Guest Editor, Medical Decision Making
Editorial Board, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
Academic Advisory Panel, Stanford Center on Adolescence, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Board of Scientific Advisors, Cornell Institute for Research on Children (a National Science Foundation research center).
Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, National Academies of Sciences.
Co-Chair, Society for Medical Decision Making, conference scientific review committee on “Judgment and Decision Making: Theory and Methods.”
Committee, Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions to Psychology, American Psychological Association.
Committee of Visitors, National Science Foundation.
Editorial Advisory Board, Biennial Bronfrenbrenner Conference Series.
National Advisory Board, Center for Learning and Human Development, Miami University.
National Advisory Board, Women in Cognitive Science (WICS), national organization dedicated to promoting equal opportunity for women in psychological science, supported by the National Science Foundation.
National Mathematics Advisory Panel (to advise the President and the Secretary of Education on the conduct, evaluation, and effective use of the results of research); Chair, Standards of Evidence Subcommittee.
Nominations Committee, Society for Medical Decision Making.
Publications and Communications Board, American Psychological Association; Co-Chair, Search Committee, Editor of Psychological Bulletin.
Current Research Activities
Judgment and Decision Making; Risk and Rationality; False Memory; Aging and Cognitive Impairment; Cognitive Neuroscience.
Dr. Reyna’s research focuses on dual processes in memory, judgment, and decision making, on how these processes change with age and expertise, and on their implications for risky decision making in law, health, and medicine. She is co-developer with another HD professor, Charles Brainerd, of fuzzy-trace theory, a theory of memory and its relation to higher cognitive processes.
Current Extension Activities
Department Extension Leader, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
Biography
Biographical Statement
Valerie Reyna is Professor of Human Development and Psychology at Cornell University, and a Co-director of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research. Dr. Reyna holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Rockefeller University, and publishes regularly in such journals as Archives of Internal Medicine, Cognitive Psychology, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Psychological Review, and Psychological Science. Her research encompasses human judgment and decision making, numeracy and quantitative reasoning, risk and uncertainty, medical decision making, social judgment, and false memory. Dr. Reyna’s current research program is focused on risky decision making in adolescents, on risk communication in genetics, cancer, and AIDS prevention, and on criteria for rationality in decision making. She is a developer of fuzzy-trace theory, a model of the relation between mental representations and decision making that has been widely applied in law, medicine, and public health. Dr. Reyna also teaches an undergraduate and a graduate seminar on Risk and Rational Decision Making.
Dr. Reyna has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a Fellow of the Division of Experimental Psychology, the Division of Developmental Psychology, the Division of Educational Psychology, and the Division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and she is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society. Dr. Reyna has been a Visiting Professor at the Mayo Clinic, a permanent member of study sections of the National Institutes of Health, and a member on advisory panels for the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Reyna was appointed Senior Research Advisor in the United States Department of Education, where she oversaw research grant policies and programs, and has also held leadership positions in organizations dedicated to equal opportunity for minorities and women, and on national executive and advisory boards of Centers and grants with similar goals, such as the Arizona Hispanic Center of Excellence, National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, and Women in Cognitive Science (supported by a National Science Foundation ADVANCE leadership award).
Dr. Reyna is currently associate editor of Psychological Science, action editor of Memory, and an editorial board member of Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, leading journals in experimental psychology, and associate editor of Developmental Review, the leading journal of literature review and theory in developmental psychology. Dr. Reyna has received many years of research support from private foundations and from U.S. government agencies. She currently serves as principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health grant to study risk and sexual decision making in youth.
Education
Ph.D. 1981 - Rockefeller University Experimental Psychology
B.A. 1976 - Clark University Psychology (Summa Cum Laude)
Administrative Responsibilities
Department Extension Leader, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
Director, Laboratory for Rational Decision Making, Cornell University
Member, Executive Committee, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
Co-Director, Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research
Courses, Websites, Pubs
Courses Taught
Upcoming Courses
HD 420 Laboratory on Risk and Rational Decision Making, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Spring 2009
HD 602 Research in Risk and Rational Decision Making, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Spring 2009
Courses Taught (selected)
HD 701 Empirical Research, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
HD 401 Independent Study, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
HD 420 Laboratory in Risk and Rational Decision Making, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
HD 602 Research on Risk and Rational Decision Making, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
Related Websites
Laboratory for Rational Decision Making
Publications
Reyna, V. F. (in press). A theory of medical decision making and health: Fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making.
Reyna, V.F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk. A dual-processes approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 13, 60-66.
Reyna, V.F., & Adam, M.B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2007). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: Numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learning and Individual Differences, 17, 147-159.
Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision making: Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1-44.
Reyna, V.F., & Lloyd, F. (2006). Physician decision making and cardiac risk: Effects of knowledge, risk perception, risk tolerance, and fuzzy processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12, 179-195.
Reyna, V.F., Lloyd, F., & Whalen, P. (2001). Genetic testing and medical decision making. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 2406-2408.