Philip Tetlock

A preeminent political psychologist, Philip Tetlock applies scientific rigor from psychology and the social sciences to improve prediction methods in political, business, and other spheres. His efforts to help people get better at making forecasts and to develop data-driven methods for learning from history are widely credited with influencing the research arm of the U.S. intelligence agencies to create a four-year geopolitical forecasting tournament.

Tetlock created the first ever forecasting competition during the Cold War when he grew increasingly concerned that public debate was dominated by vague, unverifiable predictions. His book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, a landmark analysis of subsequent decades of expert, often flawed geopolitical predictions, won a Woodrow Wilson prize in 2006. That work also served as a pilot for The Good Judgment Project, a prediction tournament among five universities sponsored by the U.S. intelligence community. Tetlock, along with his Penn colleague and spouse, Barbara Mellers, and his UC Berkeley colleague, Don Moore, co-led that contest’s winning team, which included experts in statistics, computer science, economics, psychology, and political science. As the competition drew to a close, the team began to adapt their methods for use by intelligence agencies–translating lessons learned as they transformed everyday citizens into super-forecasters whose prediction accuracy far exceeded analysts who had access to classified information.

Tetlock has received a National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War and a Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the MacArthur Foundation, Tetlock publishes in journals including Psychological Review, American Political Science Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

His latest book, Super Forecasters, features heroes (everyday people who are super-forecasters) and villains (sanctimonious pundits who routinely get it wrong) and invites readers to join a large-scale online forecasting tournament–a novel way to widely share Tetlock’s methods to evaluate and enhance prediction accuracy.

Tetlock earned a M.A. in psychology from Yale University in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1979, and a B.A. with honors in 1975 from the University of British Columbia.

Research Interests:

• social and cultural psychology, decision processes

Education

• Ph.D. Yale University, 1979 (Psychology);
  
• M.A. University of British Columbia, 1976;
  
• B.A. University of British Columbia, 1975;

Academic Experience

• 2011 -present Leonore Annenberg University Professor, School of Arts and Sciences (Psychology) and Wharton School (Management), University of Pennsylvania;
• 2002- 2010 Mitchell Endowed Professorship, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley;
• 2005-2006 Russell Sage Scholar;
• 1996-2001 Harold Burtt Professor of Psychology and Political Science, The Ohio State University;
• 1993-1994 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford;
• 1993-1995 Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley;
• 1988-1995 Director, Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley;
• 1987-1996 Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley;
• 1984-1987 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley;
• 1980-1995 Research Psychologist, Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley;
• 1979-1984 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley;

Administrative Experience

• Group Chair, Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, 2002-present;
• Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, 2003-2004;
• Director, Ph.D. programs, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley;
• Director, Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (renamed in 1992 as Institute of Personality and Social Research), University of California, Berkeley, 1988-1995.

Awards and Honors

• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009
• Harold Lasswell Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution in the Field of Political Psychology, 2008
• Grawemeyer World Order Prize, 2007
• Woodrow Wilson Award for best book published on government, politics, or international affairs, 2006
• Robert E. Lane Award for best book in political psychology, American Political Science Association, 2006
• National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of War, 1999
• MacArthur Fellow in International Security and Conflict Resolution, 1999-2001
• Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Political Psychology, International Society of Political Psychology, 1997
• Woodrow Wilson Book Award, American Political Science Association (co-recipient with P. Sniderman & R. Brody, for Reasoning and choice: Explorations in political psychology), 1992
• Philip Converse Book Award for outstanding book in the field published five or more years ago, American Political Science Association (for co-authored book, Reasoning and choice: Explorations in political psychology, 1992
• American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, 1988
• MacArthur Fellow in International Security and Conflict Resolution, 1987-1989
• Fellow of Division 8 of the American Psychological Association, 1987
• Erik H. Erikson Award of the International Society of Political Psychology, 1987
• Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1987
• Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Social Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1986
• Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship, 1977-1979
• Yale University Fellowship, 1976-1977
• Governor-General’s Gold Medal, Award for Undergraduate Academic Excellence, 1975
• British Columbia Psychological Association Gold Medal, 1975