Julia Minson

Julia Minson is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of government. She is a social psychologist with research interests in group judgment and decision-making, negotiations, and social influence. Her primary line of research addresses the “psychology of disagreement” – How do people engage with opinions, judgments and decisions that are different from their own?

She explores this theme in the context of group decision making to uncover the psychological biases that prevent managers, consumers, and policy-makers from maximizing the benefits of collaboration. She also studies the conditions that make people willing to listen and be receptive to views and opinions they strongly oppose on political and social topics.

Much of Julia’s research is conducted in collaboration with the graduate and post-doctoral members of MC² – the Minson Conflict and Collaboration Lab.

At the Kennedy School Julia is affiliated with the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Center for Public Leadership. Julia teaches courses on negotiations and decision-making as part of the Management, Leadership and Decision Science area, as well as through HKS Executive Education.

Julia is the organizer of the Colloquium on Research Results in Advancing Leadership (CORRAL) speaker series, sponsored by the Center for Public Leadership and the Management Leadership and Decision Sciences Area. She is also the Faculty Director of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory.

Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, Julia served as a Lecturer at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where she taught Negotiations at both the MBA and the undergraduate levels. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from Stanford University and her BA in Psychology from Harvard University.