Jordana Composto

Department: Psychology
Faculty Adviser: Elke Weber
Year of Study: G5
Undergraduate School: Dartmouth College
Undergraduate Major: Quantitative Social Sciences & Environmental Science

Personal Bio

Hi! I'm a graduate student in Psychology and Social Policy. I am from Philadelphia and I am excited to be living there again (go Eagles!) I have been doing academic research since I was in high school and I had the really great fortune to find mentors early on who taught me not just how to do research tasks but how to think like a researcher. I try to do the same for every research assistant I work with and I hope my undergraduate mentee walks away from our collaboration with the confidence and skills to pursue more research ideas in the future.

Fun Fact

I started rock climbing 3 months ago and now I'm obsessed.

Research Pitch

I study collective and organizational change with a focus on the energy transition; she uses a combination of experimental field studies, cognitive process tracing in the lab, and big data text analysis. Implementation of energy transition technologies requires coordinated decision-making (e.g., about investment and siting) from a broad range of stakeholders and communities. My research focuses on two psychological constructs (trust and social norms) that sit at the intersection of group phenomena and individual-level decision-making. The first line of work investigates trust as a possible accelerant or barrier to the deployment of new technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS). My behavioral experiments provide characterization of the effectiveness of an information intervention in increasing the local public’s acceptance of new CCS projects given different levels of trust. This will inform more effective practices for engaging with local communities to build trust while developing and deploying CCS projects. The second line of work develops and tests a cognitive theory of social norm perceptions and interventions. Social norms shape many types of individual and group behavior, including pro-environmental policy support and behaviors. My research applies cognitive process tracing methods to explore how attention is directed and shapes social norm perceptions and their effect on behavior. A more precise understanding of the construction of social norms will inform more effective intervention and policy design. Taken together, my work applies cognitive psychological methods and theory to inform the collective challenges of the energy transition.

Upcoming Programs That I Am Attending:

Plans for Summer 2025

Interested in participating in Summer 2025 ReMatch+ program.