Edward Cokely

* Prof. Cokely is accepting applications for new graduate students in the Cognitive Psychology Ph.D. program (emphasis in Cognitive Abilities, Decision Psychology, and Human Factors Engineering).

Dr. Cokely serves as Presidential Research Professor and Professor of Psychology at The University of Oklahoma. He specializes in decision psychology and cognitive abilities (e.g., numeracy, intelligence, expertise), mentoring graduate students in the Cognitive Psychology Ph.D. Program, with a concentration in Human Factors Engineering. Dr. Cokely is recognized as a leading expert on Risk Literacy (i.e., the ability to evaluate and understand risk) and related applications including risk communications, cognitive assessments, and cognitive training. He has co-authored nearly 100 academic papers and one book (Diversity and Disagreement; Feltz & Cokely, 2024), helping secure millions of dollars in funding for research, outreach, and student support (e.g., NSF, NAS, NOAA, Templeton, Medscape). He has received more than 20 research and teaching honors including premier awards for “…major contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior…” and for “…improving our understanding of the needs and processes of diverse decision makers in more than 50 countries…” (FABBS 2017 Early Career Impact Award; NSF 2013 early CAREER award). His research has been featured in Scientific American, New Scientist Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, BBC Futures, and New York Times and Wall Street Journal Online, among others. He is also a member of the editorial board of APA’s DECISION (2024-current), former board member for APA’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied (2017-2018), and former associate editor of SJDM’s Judgment and Decision Making (2014-2020).

Dr. Cokey’s research program focuses on risk literacy, an acquired critical thinking skill that reduces cognitive biases and supports informed decision making (see RiskLiteracy.org). To measure risk literacy, Dr. Cokely helped create the Berlin Numeracy Test (Cokely et al., 2012, 2013, 2014, 2018), which has been used by more than 150,000 people from 175 countries, contributing to hundreds of studies in psychology, medicine, education, business, law, economics, public policy, engineering, environmental science, and other fields. Together with collaborators and graduate students, Dr. Cokely discovered that statistical numeracy tests are typically the strongest predictors of general decision making skill, often doubling the predictive power of all other cognitive ability measures, including fluid intelligence tests. These and other findings led to the development of Skilled Decision Theory (Cokely et al., 2018, 2025; see also Cokely & Kelley, 2009), which provides a theoretical account of the primary cognitive mechanisms that give rise to superior judgment and decision making of experts and non-experts. For example, rather than inhibiting intuitions and emotions that might interfere with reasoning (e.g., overriding System 1 and using System 2 for logical reasoning), risk literate decision makers typically make high-quality decisions by deliberately improving their intuitive and emotional understanding of risks (e.g., using System 2 to educate and calibrate System 1, informing adaptive heuristic decision making). Dr. Cokely’s research was also among the first to establish that (i) specialized knowledge is by far the most influential driver of skilled decision making for experts and non-experts alike (e.g., the Knowledge is Power mechanism; Cokely et al., 2018; 2025; see also Cho et al., 2023), (ii) high levels of basic cognitive abilities are not generally required for skilled decision making, and (iii) transparent decision aids and training programs can eliminate decision quality differences for diverse individuals who vary widely in abilities, educations, values, backgrounds, cultures, ages, and countries of residence (Garcia-Retamero & Cokely, 2013; 2017; Cho et al., 2025).

Recent Ph.D. graduates, students, and postdoctoral scholars who have studied with Dr. Cokely have accepted positions at academic institutions (e.g., University of Southern California, Max Planck Institute, University of Michigan, University of Leeds, Pompeu Fabra University, Clemson University, Missouri University of Science & Technology, Michigan Technological University, Florida Institute of Technology, Texas Tech University), and work as applied scientists in government and industry (e.g., MITRE Corporation, Siemens Healthineers, CIBEREPS Epidemiology and Public Health, the Federal Aviation Administration).  Students mentored by Dr. Cokely have also co-authored risk literacy research articles and presentations on a wide-range of topics (e.g., misinformation and science reporting; beliefs about climate change; emotional responses to risks; risky health choices; physicians’ risk interpretations; judgment overconfidence; human intelligence, numeracy and expertise; cognitive biases and cognitive training; offshore oil operations; eye-tracking in simulated tasks; COVID and other risk perceptions; mathematical problem solving; flight and passenger safety; tornado myths and weather-related biases; visual aids and transparent risk communications).

For more on Risk Literacy see:

https://fabbs.org/2017/09/21/better-risk-literacy-better-decisions/

How well do you think about risk and uncertainty? (bbc.com)