About

Axel Moore is a doctoral researcher at the University of Delaware. Axel's research focuses on soft tissue mechanics and lubrication. Articular cartilage is the primary tissue of interest.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Economics
• Developmental psychology
• Public relations
• Internet privacy
• Pathology
• Microeconomics
• Mathematics
• Positive economics
• Accounting
• Social psychology
• Management science
• Data science
• Applied psychology
• Engineering
• Epistemology
• Statistics

Selected publications

• Peer Community in Psychology: A platform for peer review of preprints across psychology

  2025-06-11

  preprintOpen access

  The current scientific publishing landscape consists of a small number of for-profit publishers who rely on the free or underpaid labor of researchers, as well as researchers who endorse and perpetuate the system in the name of prestige. The purpose of this brief editorial is to introduce an alternative model, Peer Community in (PCI) Psychology. PCI Psychology is a journal-independent service that reviews and recommends preprints related to psychological research and scholarship. PCI Psychology is a community-focused platform with no costs to researchers, and emphasizes openness, transparency, and methodological rigor. The purpose of this brief paper is to provide an overview of PCI Psychology and how it works, document the history of the initiative, and address some questions or concerns that authors might have.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Is overconfidence an individual difference?

  Judgment and Decision Making · 2025-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Some scholars have treated overconfidence as an individual difference—that is, assuming the tendency to be overconfident is stable within a person and differs meaningfully from person to person. We question this assumption. We investigate consistency within individuals between its three forms—overestimation, overplacement, and overprecision—in multiple domains (Study 1a and 1b), at multiple times (Study 1b and 2), and with multiple measures (Study 3a and 3b). We find mixed evidence of trait-like consistency. We do find some evidence of within-individual stability across domains and time points. However, we find little consistency across different measures of the same form of overconfidence—specifically overprecision. Instead, we find more consistent evidence that overconfidence varies situationally and contextually.

  PublisherDOI

• Real and Assumed Information

  2025-06-29

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  We introduce a formal model of how individuals form beliefs by simplifying complex real information through assumptions. We demonstrate that such assumed information, while often necessary, can lead to systematic excess certainty. By modeling belief formation under model uncertainty, we show that gaining new perspectives can increase subjective uncertainty, contrary to traditional models. The paper explores implications for persuasion and disagreement, emphasizing how differing unacknowledged assumptions obstruct belief convergence. A companion paper extends the theory and provides empirical support for the predicted patterns of overprecision and disagreement.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Peer Community in Psychology: A platform for peer review of preprints across psychology

  2025-06-11

  preprintOpen access

  The current scientific publishing landscape consists of a small number of for-profit publishers who rely on the free or underpaid labor of researchers, as well as researchers who endorse and perpetuate the system in the name of prestige. The purpose of this brief editorial is to introduce an alternative model, Peer Community in (PCI) Psychology. PCI Psychology is a journal-independent service that reviews and recommends preprints related to psychological research and scholarship. PCI Psychology is a community-focused platform with no costs to researchers, and emphasizes openness, transparency, and methodological rigor. The purpose of this brief paper is to provide an overview of PCI Psychology and how it works, document the history of the initiative, and address some questions or concerns that authors might have.

  PublisherDOI

• Is Overconfidence a Trait? An Adversarial Collaboration

  Psychological Science · 2025-12-01

  article

  A fundamental underlying question about the nature of overconfidence has continued to be subject to scholarly dispute: Is overconfidence a genuine psychological trait? To advance this contested research topic, we engaged in an adversarial collaboration in which two research teams agreed upon a set of critical tests and preregistered their analyses and predictions prior to data collection. Our study ( N = 942; U.S. adults from CloudConnect) leverages a methodological innovation: To measure trait overconfidence absent task-related confounds, we developed a set of novel tasks in which performance is ostensibly random. When we assess confidence this way, we find robust relationships across tasks as measured by both confirmatory factor analyses and raw correlations. This indicates that some people do believe that they are able to perform relatively well on tasks even when there is little reason for that confidence. Our results support the claim that overconfidence might be a trait.

  PublisherDOI

• Eliciting and Modeling Probability Forecasts of Continuous Events

  2024-07-18

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We report the results of two experiments exploring methods for eliciting and scoring forecasts of continuous quantities. The results recommend binned probability elicitations over percentile elicitations and self-set bins.

  PublisherDOI

• Thoughts of God and acceptance of artificial intelligence: A replication

  2024-03-11 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We report our attempts to replicate results by Karataş and Cutright (2023), in which thoughts of God increased people’s receptivity to advice from artificially intelligent advisors. We attempt faithful replications of the five online studies from the original paper all with larger sample sizes than the originals. We fail to find evidence consistent with the claims of Karataş and Cutright. Our results suggest that if the original effect exists, it is too small to have been detected by the original studies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Overprecision in the Survey of Professional Forecasters

  Collabra Psychology · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Every decision depends on a forecast of its consequences. We examine the calibration of the single longest and most complete forecasting project. The Survey of Professional Forecasters has, since 1968, collected predictions of key economic indicators such as unemployment, inflation, and economic growth. Here, we test the accuracy of those forecasts (n = 16,559) and measure the degree to which they fall victim to overconfidence, both overoptimism and overprecision. We find forecasts are overly precise; forecasters report 53% confidence in the accuracy of their forecasts, but are correct only 23% of the time. By contrast, forecasts show little evidence of optimistic bias. These results have important implications for how organizations ought to make use of forecasts. Moreover, we employ novel methodology in analyzing archival data: we split our dataset into exploration and validation halves. We submitted results from the exploration half to Collabra:Psychology. Following editorial input, we updated our analysis plan for the validation dataset, preregistering only analyses that were consistent across different economic indicators and analytic specifications. This manuscript presents results from the full dataset, prioritizing results that were consistent in both halves of the data.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Model uncertainty and overprecision (TAO-RRT)

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-10-31

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Eliciting and Modeling Probability Forecasts of Continuous Events

  2024-07-18

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We report the results of two experiments exploring methods for eliciting and scoring forecasts of continuous quantities. The results recommend binned probability elicitations over percentile elicitations and self-set bins.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Error and Bias in Comparative Judgment

  NSF · $191k · 2005–2008

Frequent coauthors

• Garret Christensen

  Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

  76 shared

• Allan Dafoe

  DeepMind (United Kingdom)

  75 shared

• Andrew K. Rose

  University of Pittsburgh

  72 shared

• Edward Miguel

  69 shared

• Max H. Bazerman

  36 shared

• Jennifer M. Logg

  Georgetown University

  35 shared

• Uriel Haran

  34 shared

• Daniel J. Benjamin

  University of California, Los Angeles

  33 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Organization Behavior

  Northwestern University

  2000

• BA, Psychology

  Carleton College

  1993

Awards & honors

• Inaugural Houder Fellow in Pediatric Spinal Deformity, Child…