Group members
Tobia Spampatti
External PhD student
Consumer Decision & Sustainable Behavior Lab, University of Geneva
External PhD student
Renewable Energy Systems group, University of Geneva
Email:
Tobia joined the Consumer Decision and Sustainable Behavior Lab as a PhD candidate in February 2020. His current PhD research project aims at investigating how information processing and motivated information search shape beliefs, emotions, and decisions concerning renewable energies in Switzerland, with a specific focus on geothermal energy systems. Supervised by Prof. Tobias Brosch and Dr. Ulf Hahnel from the Consumer Decision and Sustainable Behavior Lab and Prof. Evelina Trutnevyte from the Renewable Energy Systems Group, Tobia is investigating how information processing strategies and subsequent judgments and decisions are influenced by (i) individual differences related to cognitive and affective traits and biases and (ii) aspects of the decision environment (e.g., information source, information framing). The final aim of the project is to identify evidence-based strategies to improve public communication on renewable energies.
He was awarded his BA in Psychological Science by the University of Padua, where he focused on how bilingualism influences our emotional life and our decision-making. During his first studies, he spent one semester at the University of Liverpool with an Erasmus+ scholarship, to specialize in affective psychology and neuroscience, and three months at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior in Nijmegen, as an Erasmus+ research trainee on an fMRI project on bilingualism.
He pursued his interest in emotion and social decision-making further by achieving his MSc at University College, London, in Social Cognition: Research and Applications. As his Master’s dissertation, he designed a psychophysiological research experiment, under the Open Science Framework guidelines, on the influences of vagal tone on helping behaviour, and if this relationship is moderated by interoceptive ability.
When not in the lab, you may find him in the park reading a book, or discovering the mountains around Geneva by hiking, skiing, and rock climbing.