David G. Rand

Associate Professor of Psychology, Economics & Management

David Rand received his B.A. in computational biology from Cornell University in 2004 and his Ph.D. in systems biology from Harvard University in 2009, and was a post-doctoral research in Harvard University’s psychology department from 2009 to 2013 before starting at Yale, where he is currently an associate professor of Psychology, Economics, and Management at Yale University, a member of the Yale Institute for Network Science, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and Cognitive Sciences Program, and the director of Yale University’s Human Cooperation Laboratory and Applied Cooperation Team. David's research combines a range of theoretical and experimental methods in an effort to explain the high levels of cooperation that typify human societies, and to uncover ways to promote cooperation in situations where it is lacking. In particular he has studied how network effects impact cooperation, the role of intuitive versus deliberative cognitive processes in motivating cooperation, and the importance of reputation and reciprocity for sustaining cooperation.

Recent Publications

• “Cooperation, Decision Time, and Culture: Online Experiments with American and Indian Participants,” PLoS ONE, Feb 2017
• “Inequality and Visibility of Wealth in Experimental Social Networks,” Nature, Sep 2015
• “Social Environment Shapes the Speed of Cooperation,” Scientific Reports, Jul 2016