About

Hengchen Dai is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations and Behavioral Decision Making at UCLA Anderson School of Management. She joined UCLA Anderson in 2017 and is also a faculty member in Anderson’s Behavioral Decision Making area. Prior to her current position, she served on the faculty of Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Dai is the co-director of the UCLA Nudge Unit, which applies insights from behavioral science to develop interventions for improving clinical quality, and she serves as a Senior Editor for Organization Science. Her research focuses on understanding what motivates people, with particular attention to how and why various kinds of “fresh starts” affect self-control and motivation, how others’ behaviors and judgments influence individual motivation, and how behavioral economics and psychology can be used to design policy interventions that steer people toward farsighted decision making. Dai’s work is published in top journals across science, management, psychology, marketing, and medical fields. She has received numerous awards and honors, including the Association for Psychological Science Fellow, the Janet Taylor Spence Award, and the Robert B. Cialdini Prize, among others. Dai teaches in UCLA Anderson’s executive MBA, fully employed MBA, and full-time MBA programs, and has been recognized as one of Poets & Quants’ World’s Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professors.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Medicine
• Social psychology
• Nursing
• Computer Science
• Family medicine
• Immunology
• Gerontology
• Environmental health
• Applied psychology
• Mathematics
• Internet privacy
• Medical emergency
• Virology
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• Reengineering Health Decision-Making Environments — Aligning Research, Policy, and Innovation for Societal Benefit

  NEJM Catalyst · 2026-04-30

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Behavioral Transfer in AI Agents: Evidence and Privacy Implications

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-21

  preprintOpen access

  AI agents powered by large language models are increasingly acting on behalf of humans in social and economic environments. Prior research has focused on their task performance and effects on human outcomes, but less is known about the relationship between agents and the specific individuals who deploy them. We ask whether agents systematically reflect the behavioral characteristics of their human owners, functioning as behavioral extensions rather than producing generic outputs. We study this question using 10,659 matched human-agent pairs from Moltbook, a social media platform where each autonomous agent is publicly linked to its owner's Twitter/X account. By comparing agents' posts on Moltbook with their owners' Twitter/X activity across features spanning topics, values, affect, and linguistic style, we find systematic transfer between agents and their specific owners. This transfer persists among agents without explicit configuration, and pairs that align on one behavioral dimension tend to align on others. These patterns are consistent with transfer emerging through accumulated interaction between owners (or owners' computer environments) and their agents in everyday use. We further show that agents with stronger behavioral transfer are more likely to disclose owner-related personal information in public discourse, suggesting that the same owner-specific context that drives behavioral transfer may also create privacy risk during ordinary use. Taken together, our results indicate that AI agents do not simply generate content, but reflect owner-related context in ways that can propagate human behavioral heterogeneity into digital environments, with implications for privacy, platform design, and the governance of agentic systems.

  PublisherDOI

• Targeting Behavioral Interventions Based on Past Behavior: Evidence from Vaccine Uptake

  2026-01-06

  articleOpen access

  Behavior change interventions are widely used, but for whom are they most effective? We examine whether past behavior shapes the effectiveness of interventions designed to either (1) provide information to shift intentions or (2) help people follow through on existing intentions. We focus on encouraging flu vaccinations. In online experiments (Study 1; N=2,602), a video correcting misconceptions about flu vaccines increased vaccination intentions more effectively among people who had not been vaccinated in the prior flu season than those who had. In a field experiment with health systems (Study 2; N=14,760), the same information intervention increased vaccination intentions and uptake for people who had not been vaccinated in the prior season but it did not have a significant impact on those previously vaccinated, though the difference between these subgroups was not statistically significant. In contrast, in the same field experiment, a follow-through intervention designed to make vaccination salient and convenient increased vaccine uptake only among those previously vaccinated. In a large-scale field experiment where streamlined adaptations of these interventions were delivered by a pharmacy (Study 3; N=2,980,249), the follow-through intervention was again more effective for prior adopters than for previously unvaccinated individuals, while the information intervention had no impact for either subgroup. Collectively, these findings suggest that people’s past behavior may indicate whether insufficient intentions or follow-through challenges are the more relevant impediments to behavior change. Organizations can use this insight to decide whether and how to invest resources in behavior change interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Behavioral Transfer in AI Agents: Evidence and Privacy Implications

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-21

  articleOpen access

  AI agents powered by large language models are increasingly acting on behalf of humans in social and economic environments. Prior research has focused on their task performance and effects on human outcomes, but less is known about the relationship between agents and the specific individuals who deploy them. We ask whether agents systematically reflect the behavioral characteristics of their human owners, functioning as behavioral extensions rather than producing generic outputs. We study this question using 10,659 matched human-agent pairs from Moltbook, a social media platform where each autonomous agent is publicly linked to its owner's Twitter/X account. By comparing agents' posts on Moltbook with their owners' Twitter/X activity across features spanning topics, values, affect, and linguistic style, we find systematic transfer between agents and their specific owners. This transfer persists among agents without explicit configuration, and pairs that align on one behavioral dimension tend to align on others. These patterns are consistent with transfer emerging through accumulated interaction between owners (or owners' computer environments) and their agents in everyday use. We further show that agents with stronger behavioral transfer are more likely to disclose owner-related personal information in public discourse, suggesting that the same owner-specific context that drives behavioral transfer may also create privacy risk during ordinary use. Taken together, our results indicate that AI agents do not simply generate content, but reflect owner-related context in ways that can propagate human behavioral heterogeneity into digital environments, with implications for privacy, platform design, and the governance of agentic systems.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Targeting Behavioral Interventions Based on Past Behavior: Evidence from Vaccine Uptake

  2026-01-08

  articleOpen access

  Behavior change interventions are widely used, but for whom are they most effective? We examine whether past behavior shapes the effectiveness of interventions designed to either (1) provide information to shift intentions or (2) help people follow through on existing intentions. We focus on encouraging flu vaccinations. In online experiments (Study 1; N=2,602), a video correcting misconceptions about flu vaccines increased vaccination intentions more effectively among people who had not been vaccinated in the prior flu season than those who had. In a field experiment with health systems (Study 2; N=14,760), the same information intervention increased vaccination intentions and uptake for people who had not been vaccinated in the prior season but it did not have a significant impact on those previously vaccinated, though the difference between these subgroups was not statistically significant. In contrast, in the same field experiment, a follow-through intervention designed to make vaccination salient and convenient increased vaccine uptake only among those previously vaccinated. In a large-scale field experiment where streamlined adaptations of these interventions were delivered by a pharmacy (Study 3; N=2,980,249), the follow-through intervention was again more effective for prior adopters than for previously unvaccinated individuals, while the information intervention had no impact for either subgroup. Collectively, these findings suggest that people’s past behavior may indicate whether insufficient intentions or follow-through challenges are the more relevant impediments to behavior change. Organizations can use this insight to decide whether and how to invest resources in behavior change interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• The Impact of Customer Information on Service Supply and Demand: Evidence from a Large Live-Streaming Experiment

  Manufacturing & Service Operations Management · 2025-10-16

  article

  Problem definition: As digitization transforms the service sector and empowers service platforms, questions arise about utilizing and disseminating customer information captured by digitization to enhance platform operations. We contribute by investigating how providing customer-related information at the start of a service encounter impacts both service supply and demand in the context of entertainment service platforms. Methodology/results: We conducted a field experiment on a live-streaming platform that connects hundreds of millions of viewers with individual broadcasters. For broadcasters randomly assigned to the treatment condition (but not for broadcasters in the control condition), when a viewer entered their shows, information about the viewer appeared on the screen. Our analyses, involving a random sample of 49,998 broadcasters, demonstrate that relative to control broadcasters, treatment broadcasters expanded service supply by 12.62% by increasing both show frequency (3.31%) and show length (7.10%), thus earning 10.44% more income, based on our conservative estimate. Moreover, our intervention increased service demand (measured by viewer watch time) by 4.51%. Additional analyses and surveys in our field setting and online experiments (n = 3,115) shed light on the potential mechanisms. Viewer-related information enables broadcasters to offer personalized service and vividly perceive viewers. On the demand side, viewers appreciate personalized service and interact with broadcasters more, which collectively boost demand. On the supply side, broadcasters not only enjoy the increased interaction with viewers but also feel a stronger sense of appreciation due to the more vivid mental image of viewers, which collectively lifts service supply. Managerial implications: This research suggests that providing customer-related information at the beginning of a service encounter can increase both service demand and supply. This low-cost, information-based intervention has important implications for digital service platforms that have little control over service providers’ work schedules and service quality. Funding: H. Dai thanks the UCLA Anderson School of Management and Anderson Behavioral Lab. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.0224 .

  PublisherDOI

• A national megastudy shows that email nudges to elementary school teachers boost student math achievement, particularly when personalized

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-03-24 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  In response to the alarming recent decline in US math achievement, we conducted a national megastudy in which 140,461 elementary school teachers who collectively taught 2,992,027 students were randomly assigned to receive a variety of behaviorally informed email nudges aimed at improving students' progress in math. Specifically, we partnered with the nonprofit educational platform Zearn Math to compare the impact of 15 different interventions with a reminder-only megastudy control condition. All 16 conditions entailed weekly emails delivered to teachers over 4-wk in the fall of 2021. The best-performing intervention, which encouraged teachers to log into Zearn Math for an updated report on how their students were doing that week, produced a 5.06% increase in students' math progress (3.30% after accounting for the winner's curse). In exploratory analyses, teachers who received any behaviorally informed email nudge (vs. a reminder-only megastudy control) saw their students' math progress boosted by an average of 1.89% during the 4-wk intervention period; emails referencing personalized data (i.e., classroom-specific statistics) outperformed emails that did not by 2.26%. While small in size, these intervention effects were consistent across school socioeconomic status and school type (public, private, etc.) and, further, persisted in the 8-wk post-intervention period. Collectively, these findings underscore both how difficult it is to change behavior and the need for large-scale, rigorous, empirical research of the sort undertaken in this megastudy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ELECTRONIC BEHAVIORAL NUDGES TO CLOSE CARDIOLOGY CARE GAPS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF 56,000 PATIENTS

  Journal of the American College of Cardiology · 2025-03-29

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Population Health Colorectal Cancer Screening Strategies in Adults Aged 45 to 49 Years

  JAMA · 2025-08-04 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Colorectal cancer screening is now recommended at age 45 years for average-risk individuals; however, optimal outreach strategies to screen younger adults are unknown. Objective: To determine the most effective population health outreach strategy to promote colorectal cancer screening in adults aged 45 to 49 years. Design, Setting, and Participants: Randomized clinical trial with 20 509 participants conducted in a large health system (UCLA Health). Primary care patients aged 45 to 49 years at average risk for colorectal cancer were randomized 1:1:1:1 to 1 of 4 outreach strategies. The trial ran May 2, 2022, to May 13, 2022, with follow-up through November 13, 2022. Interventions: Colorectal cancer screening via 1 of 4 strategies: (1) fecal immunochemical test (FIT)-only active choice; (2) colonoscopy-only active choice; (3) dual-modality (FIT or colonoscopy) active choice; and (4) usual care default mailed FIT outreach. Main Outcome and Measures: Primary outcome was participation in screening (FIT or colonoscopy) at 6 months. Secondary outcome was screening modality completed. Results: Among 20 509 participants (53.9% female, 4.2% Black and 50.8% non-Hispanic White; mean [SD] age, 47.4 [1.5] years), 3816 (18.6%) underwent screening. Participation was significantly lower in each of the 3 active choice groups (FIT only, 841 of 5131 [16.4%; rate difference, -9.8%; 95% CI, -11.3% to -8.2%]; colonoscopy only, 743 of 5127 [14.5%; rate difference, -11.7%; 95% CI, -13.2% to -10.1%]; dual-modality FIT or colonoscopy, 890 of 5125 [17.4%; rate difference, -8.9%; 95% CI, -10.5% to -7.4%]) than in the usual care default mailed FIT group (1342 of 5126 [26.2%]; all P < .001). Participants offered dual-modality active choice more likely completed any screening than those offered a single active choice modality (17.4% [dual-modality FIT or colonoscopy] vs 15.4% [FIT only and colonoscopy only combined]; rate difference, -1.8%; 95% CI, -3.0% to -0.1%; P = .004]). Among 5125 participants offered a choice between 2 modalities (dual-modality active choice FIT or colonoscopy), colonoscopy was more common than FIT (616 [12.0%] vs 288 [5.6%]; rate difference, -6.4%; 95% CI, -7.5% to -5.3%; P < .001). There was notable crossover in the FIT-only groups to colonoscopy (502 of 5131 [9.8%; FIT-only active choice] and 501 of 5126 [9.8%; usual care default mailed FIT]). Crossover from colonoscopy to FIT was modest (137 of 5127 [2.7%; colonoscopy-only active choice]). Conclusions and Relevance: In this randomized clinical trial, 3 different active choice interventions had lower colorectal cancer screening completion rates among individuals aged 45 to 49 years compared with usual care. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05275530.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trust in Focus: Theoretical Advances and Practical Implications

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  Trust is a cornerstone of human relationships and a foundational construct in management research, influencing outcomes such as cooperation, team performance, and organizational effectiveness (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012; Mayer et al., 1995). While extensively studied, trust remains a multifaceted phenomenon that continues to challenge scholars seeking to understand its mechanisms, dynamics, and broader implications. This symposium advances trust research by uncovering novel antecedents of trust from relational and identity perspectives and exploring its downstream effects in two critical domains: the workplace and healthcare. These contexts are central to individuals’ lives and represent settings where trust has profound implications for relational dynamics, performance, and well-being. By integrating truster- and trustee-centered perspectives, this symposium provides a richer understanding of how trust is shaped, expressed, and eroded across diverse relational environments. Existing research often emphasizes the trustor’s perceptions of another's trustworthiness and the factors that shape these perceptions (Colquitt et al., 2007). However, trust is a dynamic construct influenced by relationships, individual differences, context, and culture, warranting deeper exploration. The first two presentations focus on trust within organizations, examining it from the trustor's perspective. The first paper explores asymmetries in the formation and dissolution of professional ties, revealing their distinct impacts on trust development. The second paper introduces the concept of “trusting identity,” reframing trust as an expression of self-concept rather than merely an evaluation of others’ trustworthiness. Shifting to the trustee's perspective, the latter two studies examine trust between employees and clients in the healthcare context, where trust between patients and providers is crucial for effective communication, treatment adherence, and positive health outcomes (Hall et al., 2011). The third paper investigates how patients’ perceptions of being trusted by their providers influence engagement with care. The fourth paper explores cultural mismatches in communication preferences, illustrating how these misalignments erode trust in patient-provider relationships. Collectively, these studies extend trust research by addressing its nuanced antecedents, relational dynamics, and cultural dimensions. They demonstrate that trust is not merely about fostering interpersonal confidence but also about understanding how trust operates across different contexts and identities. We enrich the trust literature by integrating these perspectives and offering actionable insights to build and sustain trust across consequential settings. Movers and shakers: The effect of professional relational mobility on work desirability Author: Jiyin Cao; The Chinese University of Hong Kong Author: Hajo Adam; University of Bath Author: Alvaro San Martin; Author: Yixin Luo; Not Associated Can’t stop, won’t stop…trusting? Building trusting identity into models of trust. Author: Michael Baer; Arizona State University Author: Soohyun Yoon; Arizona State University Author: Rachel Burgess; Arizona State University Behavioral interventions for promoting preventive health: The role of trust Author: Andrea Low; University of California Los Angeles Author: Hengchen Dai; University of California Los Angeles Author: Silvia Saccardo; Author: Craig R Fox; University of California Los Angeles Author: Sitaram Vangala; University of California Los Angeles Author: Richard Leuchter; University of California Los Angeles Author: Jeffrey Fujimoto; Preferences for honesty in medical communication in the U.S. And China Author: Zaijia Liu; Author: Emma Levine; University of Chicago

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Katherine L. Milkman

  California University of Pennsylvania

  65 shared

• Silvia Saccardo

  Carnegie Mellon University

  58 shared

• Ilana Brody

  37 shared

• Angela Duckworth

  30 shared

• Dennis Zhang

  Washington University in St. Louis

  30 shared

• Dena M. Gromet

  University of Pennsylvania

  30 shared

• Mitesh S. Patel

  Ascension

  24 shared

• Maria Han

  University of California, Los Angeles

  20 shared

Education

• PhD

  University of Pennsylvania

  2015

Awards & honors

• Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences…
• Association for Psychological Science Fellow (2024)
• Academy of Management MOC Division Best Paper Award (2024)
• Association for Psychological Science Janet Taylor Spence Aw…
• The 2023 Behavioral Science & Policy Association’s Best Publ…