Josh Ackerman Ph.D.

About

Josh Ackerman, Ph.D., is a professor of social psychology working at the University of Michigan. He received his doctorate from Arizona State University and has previously worked at Yale University and the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research has been published in top psychological and science journals and has been featured in media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and major TV networks. He also showed up on the National Geographic show Brain Games, which his family never lets him forget. He studies the role of evolved motivations in shaping our current thinking and behavior. A major theme of this work has been the ways that people manage infectious disease threats, both in keeping themselves safe pre-infection and in dealing with social life post-infection.

Recent Posts

The Mating Game is a Team Sport

Finding and attracting a (quality) romantic partner is difficult. Cooperation helps land the good and avoid the bad. Other animals do it, now new research shows how cooperative courtship works in people.

Getting Ahead By Getting Along

The heights of professional success are not always gained through competence and capability. Instead, one of the biggest predictors of success is how much people like you. Social coordination can help. 

You Wear Me Out

Self-control helps us overcome temptation, and we often rely on other people to boost our own self-control abilities. Find out when this works, and when other people can actually hurt our own self-control.

We Are Not Alone

Think Different. Be an Army of One. Is this stuff even possible? Scientific findings suggest that far from being completely autonomous individuals, people are fundamentally connected to others in ways they do not even realize.