Associate Professor, Department of Business, Government and Society at University of Texas at Austin
Christopher Bryan (Phd, Stanford; BA, McGill University) is an assistant professor of Business, Government, and Society at the McCombs School of Business. His research examines the ways in which sometimes-subtle changes in how a message is framed can shift attitudes, inspire motivation, and influence behavior. He is particularly interested in how behavior can be shaped by messaging interventions that are directly relevant to core aspects of people’s self-concepts or deeply-held values.. A major theoretical theme of my work is an exploration of the ways in which the self-concept—a person’s understanding of the kind of person he or she is—can drive important behavioral decisions.
Using this approach, I have motivated employees to increase their real-life retirement saving, opened people’s minds to different ways of thinking about controversial social and political issues, prevented cheating among people who knew they couldn’t be caught, gotten young children to put down engaging toys to help an adult with chores, increased voter turnout in major elections, and persuaded teenagers to choose healthier daily diets. Most of his research takes the form of randomized field experiments. His current research is focused primarily on how messaging interventions can change attitudes and behavior in ways that improve social mobility and reduce inequality.