Richard Lau

B.A. degree in psychology, Stanford University, M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in psychology, University of California-Los Angeles

Rick Lau taught at Carnegie Mellon University before coming to Rutgers in 1990. His specialties are American politics and political psychology. His chief research interests include political cognition and political decision-making; media effects in political campaigns; institutional means for improving democratic representation; and the role of self-interest in political attitudes and behavior. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Ford Foundation.

Important publications include “Correct Voting Across Thirty-Three Democracies: A Preliminary Analysis” (with Parina Patel, Dalia Fahmy, and Robert Kaufman), 2014, British Journal of Political Science; “Behavioral Decision Making” (with David Redlawsk), 2013, Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology; “An Exploration of Correct Voting in Recent U.S. Presidential Elections” (with David Andersen and David Redlawsk), 2008, American Journal of Political Science; How Voters Decide: Information Processing During Election Campaigns (with David Redlawsk, Cambridge University Press, 2006); Negative Campaigning: An Analysis of U.S. Senate Elections (with Gerry Pomper, Rowman Littlefield, 2004); “Effectiveness of Negative Campaigning in U.S. Senate Elections” (with Gerry Pomper, American Journal of Political Science, 2002); “Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making” (with David Redlawsk, American Journal of Political Science, 2001); “The Meaning and Measure of Policy Metaphors” (with Mark Schlesinger, American Political Science Review, 2000); “The Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertisements: A Meta-analytic Review” (with Lee Sigelman, Caroline Heldman, and Paul Babbitt, American Political Science Review, 1999); “Voting Correctly” (with David Redlawsk, American Political Science Review, 1997); Political Cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition.(co-edited with David Sears, Erlbaum, 1986); “Two Explanations for Negativity Effects in Political Behavior,” American Journal of Political Science, 1985); and “Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting” (with David Sears, Tom Tyler, and Harris Allen, American Political Science Review, 1980).