Michael Geers

Michael Geers is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin (UCD), where he conducts research at the intersection of consumer psychology and digital technology. His academic journey includes a predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Dr. Geers' educational background includes a Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.) in Psychology from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Humboldt University of Berlin (2024), a Master of Behavioral and Decision Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania (2019), an M.Sc. in Marketing with distinction from Trinity College Dublin (2018), and a BA in Business Administration from Provadis School of International Management and Technology (2017).

His research focuses on human behavior in digital contexts, with two primary streams. The first investigates how people process misinformation and make decisions online, while the second aims to boost people's competences to navigate digital environments and guard against manipulation. His work spans consumer psychology of technology, digital marketing, and consumer empowerment through boosting techniques. Geers approaches these topics through the lens of adaptive rationality, examining how cognitive processes function effectively in digital environments.

His recent publications reveal a strong focus on misinformation processing, with particular attention to political asymmetries in metacognitive insight, time pressure effects on misinformation discrimination, and interventions against online misinformation. His research consistently bridges laboratory and field methodologies to ensure ecological validity while maintaining scientific rigor.

Geers has published in high-impact journals including Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Nature Human Behavior, Current Opinion in Psychology, and Scientific Reports. His collaborative work often involves interdisciplinary teams from psychology, cognitive science, and communication studies.

As a behavioral scientist, Geers contributes to the understanding of how consumers interact with digital technologies and how their decision-making processes can be supported in increasingly complex information environments. His work has implications for digital platform design, consumer protection policies, and educational interventions aimed at improving digital literacy.