Postdoctoral Associate in Marketing

George Newman is interested in the application of basic cognitive processes, such as categorization and causal reasoning, to consumer behavior.

Currently, his research examines the psychological processes underlying our concepts of authenticity and authentic "originals" in the domains of art, celebrity possessions, and consumer products. He is also interested in pro-social behaviors such as charitable giving and purchasing environmentally-friendly products, and how consumers may balance their desires to “do good” with desires to maximize the efficiency of their donations or purchases.

Previously, Newman has published work on essentialism, perceptions of animacy, children’s conceptual development, causal reasoning, and identity continuity.

Selected Publications
"The Psychophysics of Chasing" (with T. Gao and B. Scholl), Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 59, 2009

"Eight Month Old Infants Infer Unfulfilled Goals, Despite Contrary Physical Evidence" (with J.K. Hamlin and K. Wynn), Infancy, Vol. 14, No. 5, 2009

"The Origins of Causal Perception: Evidence from Postdictive Processing in Infancy" (with H. Choi, K. Wynn, and B. Scholl), Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 57, 2008

"Where’s the Essence? Developmental Shifts in Children’s Beliefs about Internal Features" (with F.C. Keil), Child Development, Vol. 79, 2008

"Biases Towards Intrinsic Features in Infants' Reasoning About Objects" (with P. Hermann, K. Wynn and F.C. Keil), Cognition, Vol. 107, 420-432, 2008

"Two Tales of Conceptual Change: What Changes and What Remains the Same" (with F.C. Keil), in S. Vosniadou, ed., The Handbook of Conceptual Change, Erlbaum, 2008

"Ontogeny Does Not Recapitulate Phylogeny for Human Concepts" (with F.C. Keil), in D. Mareschal, P. C. Quinn, & S. Lea, eds., The Making of Human Concepts, forthcoming

"Out of sorts? Remedies for theories of object concepts: A reply to Rhemtulla and Xu" (with S.V. Blok and L.J. Rips), Psychological Review, Vol. 114, 2007

"Tracing the Identity of Objects" (with S.V. Blok and L.J. Rips), Psychological Review, Vol. 113, 1–30, 2006

"Beliefs in Afterlife as a By-product of Persistence Judgments" [commentary]. (with S.V. Blok and L.J. Rips), Behavioral & Brain Sciences, Vol. 29, 480-481, 2006 

"Units of Visual Individuation in Rhesus Macaques: Objects or Unbound Features?" (with E.W. Cheries, L.R. Santos and B.J. Scholl), Perception, Vol. 35, 1057-1071, 2006

"Individuals and Their Concepts"  (with S.V. Blok and L.J. Rips),  in W. K. Ahn, R. L. Goldstone, B. C. Love, A. B. Markman & P. Wolff (eds.), Categorization Inside and Outside the Lab. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2005 

"Inferences about Individual Identity"  (with S.V. Blok and L.J. Rips), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 80–85, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001 

Working Papers 
"Art and Authenticity: The Importance of Originals in Judgments of Value" (with P. Bloom)

"Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects" (with G. Diesendruck and P. Bloom)

"The Impact of Authenticity on Consumer Preferences" (with R. Dhar)

“Bar Graphs Depicting Averages are Perceptually Misinterpreted” (with B. Scholl)

"End of Life" Biases in Moral Evaluations of Others" (with F. Keil and K. Lockhart)

"The Contaminating Effects of Crisis Management" (with E. Uhlmann, V. Brescoll, A. Galinsky, and D. Diermeier),

"Macho Nachos: The Implicit Effects of Gender on Food Preferences" (with V. Brescoll, E. Uhlmann, and J. Bargh),

"Sensitivity to Design: Early Understandings of the Link Between Agents and Order" (with F. Keil, V. Kuhlmeier, and K. Wynn)

Education
PhD Yale University, 2008
MPhil Yale University, 2007
MS Yale University, 2005
BA Northwestern University, 2002