Dr. Jessica M. Choplin is a Professor of Psychological Science who researches consumer protection and the psychological processes that lead people to misunderstand contracts, fall prey to deceptive sales practices, and struggle under cognitive load. She examines how misrepresentations, framing effects, and information overload shape consumer vulnerability in everyday financial transactions, with the goal of advancing protections through psychological insight. Dr. Choplin teaches courses in cognition, learning, decision making, and the psychology of women, emphasizing how scientific theories connect to real-world problems. She is committed to helping students understand the mechanisms of decision making and their consequences in daily life. In service, she has contributed to faculty governance, the protection of research participants, curriculum development, and community engagement that extends psychological knowledge to broader audiences, highlighting the value of psychology in promoting informed choices and protecting human wellbeing.
Education
PhD, Cognitive Psychology, UCLA, 2002
MA, Cognitive Psychology , UCLA, 1998
BS, Philosophy & Cognitive Science, UCLA, 1995
Major Areas of Interest
- Judgment & Decision Making
- Attribute evaluations (e.g., evaluations of price and other consumer-product attributes, food, body size)
- Consumer fraud and protection
Representative Sample of Publications
Choplin, J. M. (2010). I Am “Fatter” Than She Is: Language-Expressible
Body-Size Comparisons Bias Judgments of Body Size. Journal of Language
and Social Psychology.
Stark, D.P. & Choplin, J.M. (2010). A
cognitive and social psychological analysis of disclosure laws and call
for mortgage counseling to prevent predatory lending. Psychology, Public
Policy, & Law.
Stark, D.P. & Choplin, J.M. (2009). A
license to deceive: Enforcing contractual myths despite consumer
psychological realities. NYU Journal of Law & Business, 5, 617-744.