معرفی
Dr. Gary L. Brase is a Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University's College of Arts and Sciences. He directs the Adaptive Reasoning and Decisions Lab, where he conducts research at the intersection of cognitive and social psychology from an evolutionary perspective. His work focuses on human rationality, decision-making processes, and statistical reasoning.
Dr. Brase received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His educational background has prepared him for interdisciplinary research that bridges evolutionary theory, cognitive psychology, and social psychology.
Dr. Brase's research program investigates evolutionary approaches to understanding human rationality, with particular focus on Bayesian reasoning, mate selection, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying decision-making. His work explores how ecological and evolutionary factors shape human cognition, particularly in areas of social perception, risk assessment, and statistical reasoning. He has made significant contributions to understanding how numerical formats influence reasoning performance and decision outcomes.
His extensive publication record demonstrates consistent productivity across multiple domains, with recent work spanning evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, medical decision-making, and sustainable energy systems. A notable trend in his research is the integration of multiple lines of evidence to build comprehensive behavioral science theories, with strong emphasis on methodological rigor and ecological validity. His work often examines how individual differences in cognitive abilities, personality traits, and numeracy affect reasoning and decision processes.
Dr. Brase has mentored numerous students in his lab, with one recent notable achievement being Natalie Drouhard winning the department research award for 2025. He emphasizes involving undergraduate students in ongoing research projects before guiding them toward independent investigations aligned with their interests. Completion of Experimental Methods (Psychology 350) is strongly encouraged for students interested in joining his lab.
Dr. Brase leads the Adaptive Reasoning and Decisions Lab (also known as the Brase Lab), which studies human adaptive reasoning and decision-making from a multidisciplinary approach. The lab uses evolutionary theory to generate hypotheses about cognitive design while framing these as information processing models. Current research examines topics including sex ratio tracking, mate value assessment, and the influence of numerical representations on decision quality. The lab has developed several assessment scales including the One-item Mate Values Scale, Attitudes towards Babies Scale, and Multiple Choice General Numeracy Scale.
