In just a few years, Gollwitzer has established himself as a prominent social psychologist, publishing steadily in top journals in the field. His work has explored various research areas, such as motivation, social cognition, and political psychology. In his recent work, Gollwitzer has focused on understanding the evolution and impact of distorted and destructive information and belief systems, with a particular emphasis on strategies to counteract them.
“First and foremost, I'd like to thank those who nominated me and supported me throughout my time in academia. It takes an army, and none of the work I've done would have been possible alone. I'm also extremely grateful to be able to draw attention to the recent work I'm doing on polarization, misinformation, and political violence. Anything that allows me to highlight the urgency of these topics given the current trends towards alt-right ideologies and declining trust in science is a win in my book,” says Gollwitzer.
Gollwitzer received his PhD from Yale University in 2021. After his PhD, Anton worked at the Max Planck institute in Berlin where he is still an Associate Research Scientist. He joined BI in 2022.
“Nothing more meaningful”
In his most recent work, Anton has studied what drives fanaticism, which interventions can successfully reduce false news sharing, and how well (or poorly) social scientists can predict societal change.
“At a base level, there is something fundamentally beautiful about uncovering knowledge. Given the current state of the world, and the continued perseverance of crackpots, conmen, and general woo-woo nonsense, I can think of nothing more meaningful to do with my life than try to provide truth,” he says.
“Accomplished and passionate”
The award committee emphasised Gollwitzer’s unique background tying together psychology and computer science, working with statistical analyses, machine learning, computational algorithms, big data, and large language models.
“Anton Gollwitzer is an accomplished and passionate young researcher, with innovative research that challenges common assumptions across several domains. In sum, we believe his extensive and impressive high quality publication record, funding and outreach makes him deserving of the BI Young Research Talent Award 2024,” says Chair of the award committee, Professor Hilde C. Bjørnland.
About BI Young Research Talent Award:
- The award was handed out during BI’s Research Day event 28 November.
- This year’s award committee consisted of Professor Valarie A. Zeithaml (UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School), Professor Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University) and Hilde C. Bjørnland (BI). Both Zeithaml and Bloom are Honorary Doctors at BI Norwegian Business School.
- The award recognises and promotes excellent and interesting research by junior faculty members.