Samuel Pertl: Stanford PhD Transforming the Study of Emotions in Financial Decisions
- Miguel Virgen, PhD Student in Business
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
Samuel Pertl is a doctoral researcher at Stanford Graduate School of Business who specializes in behavioral economics and decision-making. In 2024 he co-authored a landmark study published in Nature Human Behaviour, marking his first peer-reviewed article (nature.comphys.org). This research analyzed survey data from 77,242 people in 74 countries and demonstrated that emotional states do not shape financial choices in a uniform way around the world. In fact, positive mood tended to increase patience in 53 countries but was linked to greater impatience in 21 others (phys.orgnature.com). These findings – contrary to simple evolutionary theories that treat emotions as universal drivers – highlight substantial cross-country variation. Pertl’s work immediately drew attention because it combined a massive meta-analysis of past studies with new global data, bridging disciplines of psychology and economics to address how culture and development shape decision processes.
Early Life and Education
Pertl grew up in Germany and pursued his undergraduate studies in corporate management and economics at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. He distinguished himself academically during this period, earning the university’s Diversitätsstipendium (diversity scholarship) in 2014 for outstanding achievement (zu.de). Zeppelin University is known for its interdisciplinary approach, and Pertl’s success there set the stage for an international research career. After completing his studies in Germany, Pertl moved to the United States to pursue graduate training. He became a PhD student in the Marketing area at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he joined the behavioral science group in 2019 (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). At Stanford he has focused on questions at the intersection of emotion and economics, guided by faculty mentors and in collaboration with scholars such as Tara Srirangarajan (Psychology) and Oleg Urminsky (Chicago Booth) (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).
Research Focus: Emotions and Economic Choice
Pertl’s academic interests center on how incidental emotions – the moods and feelings people carry with them – influence economic decisions. In general, researchers have long hypothesized that feelings like happiness or fear play an important role in choices involving risk and time delays. For example, traditional theories suggest that people in a positive mood might prefer to wait for a larger future reward or be more willing to take a favorable gamble. To rigorously test these ideas, Pertl and his colleagues decided to look beyond the typical Western student samples and analyze data on how real people make financial choices around the globe. They used two large survey sources – the Gallup World Poll and the Global Preferences Survey – which together include a wide variety of countries (74 nations in total) and record both people’s recent emotional experiences and their intertemporal or risky financial decisions. This approach let Pertl investigate whether the emotion-decision link observed in lab experiments holds true in representative populations worldwide.
Landmark Study in Nature Human Behaviour
In late 2024, Pertl was the lead author of a comprehensive paper in Nature Human Behaviour titled “A multinational analysis of how emotions relate to economic decisions regarding time or risk”. This project had two main components. First, the authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of prior literature on emotions and economic choices, encompassing 378 statistical results from 213 published studies (over 50,000 participants). They found that almost all existing studies used non-representative samples – typically young students in Western, high-income. This meta-analysis thus confirmed a gap: the assumption that emotions universally affect decision-making had never been tested in diverse, real-world populations.
Second, the team analyzed the multinational survey data. They worked with responses from 77,242 individuals across 74 countries (representative national samples) to see how each person’s reported positive or negative emotions related to their choices between smaller-sooner vs. larger-later rewards (time decisions) and certain vs. uncertain payouts (risky decisions). Statistical models controlled for demographics and country factors, enabling a fair comparison across. The combination of the meta-review and the global dataset made this study unique: it was both broad in scope (sweeping in existing research) and deep in data (covering nearly 80,000 survey respondents worldwide).
Key Findings and Surprises
Pertl and co-authors reported several major findings. Consistent with some prior theories, they observed that, on average, people in a more positive emotional state tended to be more patient and willing to take favorable risks. However, crucially, this effect was not the same everywhere. The analysis revealed “substantial and systematic cross-country variation” in the emotion–decision relationships. Put simply, being happy did not mean the same thing in terms of financial choices around the globe. As Pertl summarizes, “while being in a positive mood was associated with greater patience in 53 countries, it was linked to greater impatience in 21 countries". In practical terms, this could mean that a glad mood in one culture makes you willing to save money, while in another it might make you more likely to spend it sooner.
The study also identified predictors of this variation. Statistical tests showed that emotional effects were stronger in countries with higher economic development and greater cultural individualism. In more developed, individualistic societies, moods more reliably translated into decision biases; in less-developed or more collectivist countries, the link was weaker. This finding suggests that local norms, economic security, or other cultural factors moderate how our feelings shape choices. Overall, the study’s message was clear: there is no one-size-fits-all “feelings formula” for how people handle money and risk. This challenges theories that treat emotional influences as universal constants and highlights the importance of context.
Broader Impacts and Continued Work
The implications of Pertl’s work are both practical and scientific. By demonstrating cross-cultural differences, the research underscores that economists and psychologists must use more diverse samples when studying decision-making Policies or financial models based on emotional decision theories from Western samples might not apply elsewhere. Pertl himself notes that the team’s findings “underscore the need for more diverse samples” in fundamental research. He has since moved on to explore other questions in behavioral science, but his co-authors and collaborators continue to investigate related topics on emotions and decisions.
Samuel Pertl’s first published paper thus made a significant splash, and it foreshadows his future potential as a researcher. Combining rigorous analysis with a global perspective, he has helped change how scholars think about the role of emotion in economics. His journey – from earning honors at Zeppelin University in Germany to conducting cutting-edge research at Stanford – illustrates the international trajectory of modern science. As a result of this work, Pertl has established himself as a rising figure in the field, exemplifying how cross-border data and collaboration can yield new insights into human behavior.
LinkedIn Profile:
Keywords:
Stanford PhD Samuel Pertl behavioral economist, emotions financial decision-making study, cross-country decision research, Nature Human Behaviour emotions finance, Zeppelin University alumni researcher, global economic psychology.
