Gary L. Brase, Ph.D.
Research Interests:
Dr. Brase's research is concerned with evolutionary approaches to understanding the nature of human rationality. His research, in terms of traditional areas within psychology, is at the intersection of cognitive psychology (investigating reasoning, decision-making, and judgments under uncertainty) and social psychology (incorporating topics such as interpersonal relations, helping behavior, social perception, and persuasion). Some of the specific topics of his research are:
- Statistical judgments under uncertainty:
Presenting numerical information in different ways (e.g., as frequencies or as single-event probabilities) changes how people use that information and even how that information is perceived. Dr. Brase is interested both in the competence issues related to this phenomenon (i.e., how different presentations of statistical information can influence performance and apparent rationality) as well as applied issues (e.g., how subjective perceptions of numbers in certain formats as either “large” or “small” can influence subsequent evaluations and persuasiveness).
- Domain-specific reasoning:
Formal logic says that reasoning should be based only on the structure, or syntax, of statements. When people actually reason about meaningful statements, however, they use the content of that information to make conclusions that formal logic does not allow. Some of Dr. Brase’s research seeks to illuminate what aspects of particular contents are keys to understanding how people reason about those contents. For example, he has previously studied the effects of social group information (group membership and group markers) on inferences made across different reasoning tasks.
- Social decision making:
Particular categories of interpersonal relationships have specific and important implications for the actors, both from an immediate standpoint and as evolutionarily recurrent situations. Intersexual relationships, for example, have important dimensions that reflect both the present situations in which men and women find themselves and the (sometimes discordant) evolved predispositions of both sexes. Dr. Brase’s work, with a number of collaborators, has studied the nature of sex differences in reasoning and decision-making within the context of various social situations such as perceptions of sexual harassment, self-esteem, perceptions of physicians, and evaluations of physical attractiveness.
Recent Representative Publications
Copyright Notice
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Numerical and Statistical judgments
Brase, G.L. (in press). Pictorial representations and numerical representations in Bayesian reasoning. Applied Cognitive Psychology.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2008). A field study of how different numerical information formats influence charity support. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 20(1), 1-13.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2008). Frequency interpretation of ambiguous statistical information facilitates Bayesian reasoning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15(2), 284-289.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. & Stelzer, H.E. (2007). Education and Persuasion in Extension Forestry: Effects of Different Numerical Information Formats. Journal of Extension, 45(4) [Abstract]
[open-access at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2007august/a1p.shtml].
Brase, G.L. & Barbey, A.K. (2006). Mental Representations of Statistical Information. To appear in: A. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 41. (pp 91-113) New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L., Fiddick, L., & Harries, C. (2006). Participant recruitment methods and statistical reasoning performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59(5), 965–976.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2002). There is no evidentiary silver bullet for the frequency adaptation hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25(4), 508-509.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2002). Which Statistical Formats Facilitate what Decisions? The perception and influence of different statistical information formats. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15(5), 381-401.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2002). Ecological and Evolutionary Validity: Comments on Johnson-Laird, Legrenzi, Girotto, Legrenzi, & Caverni’s (1999) Mental Model Theory of Extensional Reasoning. Psychological Review, 109(4), 722-728.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2002). “Bugs” built into the system: An evolutionary explanation for developmental difficulties in learning about fractions. Learning and Individual Differences, 12 (4), 391-409.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1998). Individuation, counting, and statistical inference: The roles of frequency and whole object representations in judgment under uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127 (1), 3-21.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Social reasoning
Brase, G.L. (2004). What we reason about and why: How evolution explains reasoning. In: K. Manktelow & M.C. Chung (Eds.) Psychology of reasoning: Theoretical and historical perspectives. (pp. 309-331 ) Hove: Psychology Press.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. & Miller, R.L. (2001). Sex Differences in the Perception of and Reasoning About Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment. Psychology, Evolution and Gender, 3 (3), 241-264.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2001). Reasoning about Coalitions: Using Markers of Social Group Membership as Probabilistic Cues in Reasoning Tasks. Thinking & Reasoning, 7 (4), 313 – 346.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Social decision making
Evans, K. & Brase, G.L. (2007). A new methodology to assess sex difference and similarities in mate preferences: Above and beyond demand characteristics. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 24(5), 781–791.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2006). Cues of parental investment as a factor in attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27(2), 145-157.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
[Click here for supplementary materials]
Brase, G.L. (2004). Functional clothes for the emperor. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 328-329.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L., Caprar, D.V. & Voracek, M. (2004). Sex differences in responses to relationship threats in England and Romania. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21(6), 763-778.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. & Richmond, J. (2004). The white coat effect: Physician attire and perceived authority, friendliness, and attractiveness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34(12), 2469-2481.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. & Walker, G.A. (2004). Male sexual strategies modify ratings of female models with specific waist-to-hip ratios. Human Nature, 15(2), 209-224.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. & Guy, E.C. (2004). The Demographics of Mate Value and Self-esteem. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(2), 471-484.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Levine, R.L., Martinez, T.S., Brase, G. & Sorrensen, K. (1994). Helping behavior in 36 cities across the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 (1), 69-82.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Evolution and Psychology
Raffone, A. & Brase, G.L. (2006). The key role of prefrontal cortex structure and function. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29(1), 22-22.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2003). The allocation system: Using signal detection processes to regulate representations in a multi-modular mind. In: K.J. Gilhooly (Series Ed.) & D.E. Over (Vol. Ed.) Current Issues in Thinking and Reasoning. Evolution and the psychology of thinking: The debate. (pp. 11-32) Hove: Psychology Press.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G. (2002). Mental modularity, metaphors, and the marriage of evolutionary and cognitive sciences. Cognitive Processing: International Quarterly of Cognitive Science, 3-4, 3-18.
[Abstract] [Click here for full paper]
Brase, G.L. (2002). Review of Conceptual Challenges in Evolutionary Psychology: Innovative Research Strategies, Edited by Harmon R. Holcomb III, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001. The Human Nature Review, 2, 147-152.
[Click here for full paper]
Research Articles
- Brase, G.L. (2006). Cues of parental investment as a factor in attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27(2), 145-157. [click here for supplemental materials]
- Brase, G.L., Fiddick, L., & Harries, C. (2006). Participant recruitment methods and statistical reasoning performance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59(5), 965–976.
- Brase, G.L. (2002). Which Statistical Formats Facilitate what Decisions? The perception and influence of different statistical information formats. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15(5), 381-401.
- Brase, G.L. & Barbey, A.K. (2006). Mental Representations of Statistical Information. In: A. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 41. (pp 91-113) New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Click here for a full list of publications
Student Involvement
Dr. Brase’s philosophy for working with undergraduate students is to begin by immersing students in ongoing projects so that they become familiar with the procedures and ideas involved in the lab. Students who find that they enjoy and excel at research can then move on to research projects on topics related to their own interests (if they are not already doing so).
Undergraduate students who are interested in working on research topics such as those described above can apply to be a research assistant in Dr. Brase’s lab. Undergraduate research assistants can be involved across the range of research activities, from reading and discussing relevant articles, to designing, preparing, and carrying out experiments, to analyzing the data, writing up the results, and presenting it at a conference or submitting it for publication. Dr.Brase can be contacted by email (gbrase@ksu.edu) or phone ( 785-532-0609) for more information about opportunities in his lab..
Additional Information
Dr. Brase received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He and his wife Sandra have two children, Alexander and Emma. He enjoys cooking and traveling.
Click here for a brief CV of Dr. Brase
