Dr Simona Cantarella
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Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour and Marketing
Specialism
Business Psychology and Psychology of decision makingAreas of interest
Psychology and NeurosciencePostgraduate supervision
I welcome PhD students with a background in social sciences who are interested in developing projects that take a multidisciplinary approach to explore topics such as consumer behaviour, the psychology of decision-making, and ethics in marketing and business.Teaching
Applied Marketing and ManagementResearch projects
My research is multidisciplinary, and I like to combine different methods from fields such as Business and Neuroscience. I primarily investigate the factors that influence decision-making in economics under conditions of risk and uncertainty, while also measuring physiological indices such as Skin Conductance Response and Heart Rate.Background
I graduated in Developmental Psychology at the University of Padua (Italy) in 2005. Then I obtained a MSc in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at University of Padua (2007), and a PhD in Marketing and Reputation awarded by the Henley Business School and the Department of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences (University of Reading) in 2016.
After completing my PhD, I spent over one year (2016-2018) as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Medicine (Imperial College London) were I conducted research in medical decision making by using Signal Detection Theory. I then joined the ICMA centre for financial market in 2018 (University of Reading) were I worked as post-doctoral research associate on an ESRC project to explore the physiological and behavioural outcomes of risky investment decisions of retail investors. I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Business Psychology at Kingston University and a Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour and Marketing at the University of Reading. My research interests focus on the effects of emotions and biases on financial decision-making under risk and uncertainty, as well as consumers' risk perceptions of products.
Academic qualifications
PhD, University of Reading, United Kingdom, Oct 2012 - April 2016
MSc, Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Padua, Italy, Oct 2005 - Dec 2007
BSc, Developmental Psychology, University of Padua, Italy, Oct 2001 - July 2005
Professional bodies/affiliations
Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society
Selected publications
1. Cantarella, S., Hillenbrand, C., & Brooks, C. (2023). Do you follow your head or your heart? The simultaneous impact of framing effects and incidental emotions on investment decisions. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 102124.
3. Kostopoulou, O., Nurek, M., Cantarella, S., Okoli, G., Fiorentino, F., & Delaney, B.C. (2019). Referral Decision Making of General Practitioners: A Signal Detection Study. Medical Decision Making, 39 (1).
4. Cantarella, S., Hillenbrand, C., Aldridge-Waddon, L., & Puzzo, I. (2018). Preliminary evidence on the somatic marker hypothesis applied to investment choices. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 11(4), 228.
5. Puzzo, I., Cooper, N.R., Cantarella, S., Russo, R. & Fitzgerald, P.B. (2013). The effect of rTMS over the inferior parietal lobule on EEG sensorimotor reactivity differs according to self-reported traits of autism. Brain Research, 1541: 33-41 4.
6. Gillmeister, H., Cantarella, S., Gheorghiu,A.I., Adler, J. (2012). Object-guided spatial selection in touch without concurrent changes in the perceived location of the hands. Experimental Psychology, 60(1):64-70.
7. Puzzo, I., Cooper, N.R., Cantarella, S. & Russo, R. (2011). Measuring the Effects of Manipulating Stimulus Presentation Time on Sensorimotor Alpha and Low Beta Reactivity During Hand Movement Observation. NeuroImage, 57(4):1358-63.