Jillian Jordan

Jillian Jordan is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. She teaches Negotiations in the MBA elective curriculum.

Professor Jordan’s research investigates moral behavior and the psychology that surrounds it, with a focus on the role of reputation. When and why do people make personal sacrifices for moral causes, including through acts of prosociality and expressions of moral outrage? And how are the answers to these questions shaped by the powerful human drive to be seen positively by others? To address these questions, Professor Jordan explores the ways that reputation motives create hidden incentives that shape moral behavior, emotions, and cognition—often without people's conscious awareness. Her work integrates methods from psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary game theory.

Professor Jordan earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University and an A.B. in Psychology from Harvard University. Prior to joining HBS, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Dispute Resolution Research Center at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Her research has been published in numerous academic journals and popular media outlets including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and The New York Times.