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Dr. Tom Noah is a post-doctoral fellow at USC Mind and Society Center, working with Dr. Norbert Schwarz and Dr. Daphna Oyserman on the influence of the feeling that we are being observed on judgment and decision making. Tom has an LLB in law and cognitive sciences, an MA in cognitive sciences, and a PHD in social psychology with specialization in the study of rationality, all of them from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Although decades of research in social psychology explored how the presence of others affects our behavior and performance, we still know surprisingly little about the impact of the feeling of being observed on the cognitive processes that underlie judgment and decision making. I suggest that feeling observed leads to prioritizing shared reality over private information to which others are not privy. In my talk, I will present findings indicating that feeling observed reduces reliance on internal cues of metacognitive experience and bodily feedback, while increasing the tendency to believe and find meaning in externally provided information.