About

Noah Goldstein is a Professor of Management and Organizations at UCLA Anderson School of Management, holding the Ho-Su Wu Chair in Management and serving as department chair since 2025. He holds joint appointments at UCLA in the Department of Psychology and at the David Geffen School of Medicine. His primary research involves studying the factors that lead people to change their behaviors across various contexts, including management, marketing, and health. Goldstein has been awarded research fellowships and grants from prominent institutions such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Goldstein teaches the psychology of persuasion and advises both corporate and government organizations, applying tested persuasion research to have substantial impact. He has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of two Fortune Global 500 companies. As an author, he has coauthored two acclaimed books on persuasion, including the New York Times best-seller "Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive" and "The Small BIG," which explores how small influence strategies can yield significant results without compromising ethics. His work emphasizes the application of scientific principles to influence and behavior change, and he is recognized for his contributions to understanding social norms, conformity, health management, and social judgment.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Social psychology
• Virology
• Nursing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Economics
• Microbiology
• Mathematics
• Chemistry
• Intensive care medicine
• Cognitive psychology
• Econometrics
• Applied psychology
• Statistics
• Internal medicine
• Family medicine
• Business
• Advertising
• Positive economics
• Biology
• Data science

Selected publications

• Changing Clinician Behavior in Geriatrics: Point-of-Care Alerts for Prostate-Specific Antigen Screening

  American Journal of Preventive Medicine · 2026-02-10

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Association Between Sociodemographic Characteristics and Weight Loss in a Financial Incentive Intervention for Adults With Obesity Living in Low-Income Neighborhoods

  American Journal of Health Promotion · 2025-06-10

  article

  Purpose To evaluate the association between demographic characteristics and weight-loss in response to financial incentives designed using behavioral economics. Design Retrospective analysis of randomized clinical trial (RCT). Setting FIReWoRk RCT (NCT03157713), which found that financial incentives were more effective than provision of weight-management resources only for weight-loss. Subjects 668 adults with obesity (221 in resources-only group, 447 in incentive groups) living in low-income neighborhoods. Measures Demographic characteristics and weight-loss. Analysis Linear mixed-effects models with interaction terms to examine effect of incentives on weight-loss in different demographic groups. Results Mean age of participants was 47.69 years, 81.0% were women, 72.6% were Hispanic, and mean BMI was 37.95 kg/m 2 . Financial incentives increased percent weight loss at 6 months (difference in percent weight loss between financial incentive and resources-only group = −2.41%; 95% CI −3.23% to −1.58%). In fully adjusted models, participants who were Black lost less weight than participants who were White (difference in percent weight loss = 2.12%; 95% CI 0.25% to 3.99%). Differences in percent weight loss by sex, age, education and neighborhood income were absent. Models that tested for interactions between group assignment and percent weight loss did not demonstrate evidence of a heterogenous effect of incentives in sociodemographic subgroups. Conclusion Black participants in the FIReWoRk intervention lost less weight than White participants, but effectiveness of financial incentives generally did not vary significantly by sociodemographic characteristics. However, it remains important to evaluate potential impacts of financial incentive programs on health disparities.

  PublisherDOI

• The Study in Outpatient Medicine using Nudges to Improve Sleep (SOMNUS): study protocol for an 18-month factorial, cluster-randomized trial to increase guideline-concordant treatment of insomnia in primary care

  Trials · 2025-12-23

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Guidelines support cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia. However, the most widely prescribed treatments are pharmacological sedatives referred to as "Z-drugs," which are not recommended as first-line or for long-term use. The Study in Outpatient Medicine Using Nudges to Improve Sleep (SOMNUS) is an 18-month, factorial, cluster-randomized trial designed to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral interventions that nudge primary care clinicians to provide guideline-concordant treatment for patients with insomnia by facilitating CBT-I use and discouraging Z-drug orders. METHODS: The SOMNUS trial takes place at Northwestern Medicine, an academic health system located in and around Chicago, IL, USA, and will enroll 444 primary care clinicians working in 64 outpatient clinics. Using a 2 × 2 factorial design, clinicians will be clinic-cluster-randomized to receive one of two nudges embedded in the electronic health record (EHR), their combination, or neither. The first nudge sets the default dispense quantity for new Z-drug orders to 10 pills with no refills. The second nudge is a just-in-time prompt with a one-click option to align orders with guidelines and requires clinicians to enter a justification if prompt recommendations are not followed. The primary outcome is the change in encounter-level Z-drug pill count from the 18 months before through the 18 months after the intervention period begins. Secondary outcomes will assess CBT-I referrals, monthly Z-drug pill count, Z-drug treatment duration, and benzodiazepine pill count. DISCUSSION: The SOMNUS trial will use EHR-integrated behavioral nudges that aim to increase guideline-concordant treatment of insomnia in primary care. Results can inform scalable approaches to improve insomnia treatment. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06640023. Prospectively Registered on October 15 2024.

  PublisherDOI

• A Megastudy of Behavioral Interventions to Increase Voter Registration Ahead of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

  2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  In the United States, in nearly all cases, one must register in order to vote—yet, a substantial portion of the eligible electorate remains unregistered. Despite this, relatively little is known about how to increase the likelihood that a voter registers. Here, we tested the impact of 10 expert-crowdsourced, theoretically-based psychological interventions on a sample of eligible, yet unregistered, U.S. voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election (N = 12,896). Eight of the interventions increased intentions to vote, and five led individuals to click on the voter registration website. Escalating Commitment, which sequentially employed several social pressure strategies, was the strongest intervention across these outcomes. However, none of the interventions had a significant effect on actual voter registration or voter turnout. The results highlight a substantial disconnect between voters’ intentions and their ultimate behaviors. We discuss potential structural and psychological barriers that undermine the translation of intent into action.

  PublisherDOI

• Persistence of Social Norms Feedback on Postsurgery Opioid Prescribing Behavior

  JAMA Health Forum · 2025-01-31 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  This secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial evaluates the persistence of prescribing guideline-recommended postoperative opioids 1 year after intervention cessation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Megastudy of Behavioral Interventions to Increase Voter Registration Ahead of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

  2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  In the United States, in nearly all cases, one must register in order to vote—yet, a substantial portion of the eligible electorate remains unregistered. Despite this, relatively little is known about how to increase the likelihood that a voter registers. Here, we tested the impact of 10 expert-crowdsourced, theoretically-based psychological interventions on a sample of eligible, yet unregistered, U.S. voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election (N = 12,896). Eight of the interventions increased intentions to vote, and five led individuals to click on the voter registration website. Escalating Commitment, which sequentially employed several social pressure strategies, was the strongest intervention across these outcomes. However, none of the interventions had a significant effect on actual voter registration or voter turnout. The results highlight a substantial disconnect between voters’ intentions and their ultimate behaviors. We discuss potential structural and psychological barriers that undermine the translation of intent into action.

  PublisherDOI

• Reducing Care Overuse in Older Patients Using Professional Norms and Accountability

  Annals of Internal Medicine · 2024-02-05 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Effective strategies are needed to curtail overuse that may lead to harm. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of clinician decision support redirecting attention to harms and engaging social and reputational concerns on overuse in older primary care patients. DESIGN: 18-month, single-blind, pragmatic, cluster randomized trial, constrained randomization. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04289753). SETTING: 60 primary care internal medicine, family medicine and geriatrics practices within a health system from 1 September 2020 to 28 February 2022. PARTICIPANTS: 371 primary care clinicians and their older adult patients from participating practices. INTERVENTION: Behavioral science-informed, point-of-care, clinical decision support tools plus brief case-based education addressing the 3 primary clinical outcomes (187 clinicians from 30 clinics) were compared with brief case-based education alone (187 clinicians from 30 clinics). Decision support was designed to increase salience of potential harms, convey social norms, and promote accountability. MEASUREMENTS: ) less than 7%. RESULTS: greater than 9.0% was more common with the intervention among previously overtreated diabetes patients (adjusted difference-in-differences, 0.47 per 100 patients [95% CI, 0.04 to 1.20]). LIMITATION: A single health system limits generalizability; electronic health data limit ability to differentiate between overtesting and underdocumentation. CONCLUSION: Decision support designed to increase clinicians' attention to possible harms, social norms, and reputational concerns reduced unspecified testing compared with offering traditional case-based education alone. Small decreases in diabetes overtreatment may also result in higher rates of uncontrolled diabetes. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: National Institute on Aging.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Friendship fallout and bailout backlash: The psychology of borrowing and lending

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2024-03-07 · 2 citations

  article

  Abstract Six studies explore the psychology of borrowing and lending. Across two different contexts—friends lending to friends and taxpayers bailing out businesses—lenders are angrier with borrowers who specifically make hedonic (as opposed to utilitarian) purchases with loaned money. This anger is pronounced enough that lenders' negative feelings toward borrowers who made past hedonic (vs. utilitarian) purchases remains even after they have been fully repaid. Undergirding lender anger is deserved oversight —a novel construct capturing people's belief that they deserve control and say over another's decision‐making. Borrowers and lenders do not agree on who deserves oversight over how the loaned funds are spent in large part because they differ in how much perceived ownership they each feel over the money. When lenders are yet to be repaid, their desire for oversight extends even to purchases made separately from the loaned amount. Finally, these processes and consequences are most powerful when money is lent compared with other forms of exchange, such as gifting money or being paid for work.

  PublisherDOI

• A randomized trial looking at planning prompts to reduce opioid prescribing

  Nature Communications · 2024-01-12 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Prior work has demonstrated that personalized letters are effective at reducing opioid and benzodiazepine prescribing, but it is unclear whether If/when-then planning prompts would enhance this effect. We conducted a decedent-clustered trial which randomized 541 clinicians in Los Angeles County to receive a standard (n = 284), or comparator (n = 257) version of a letter with If/when-then prompts. We found a significant 12.85% (6.83%, 18.49%) and 8.32% (2.34%, 13.93%) decrease in the primary outcomes morphine (MME) and diazepam milligram equivalents (DME), respectively. This study confirms the benefit of planning prompts, and repeat letter exposure among clinicians with poor patient outcomes. Limitations include lack of generalizability and small sample size. Clinicaltrials.gov registration: NCT03856593.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Correction: A pragmatic parallel arm randomized-controlled trial of a multi-pronged electronic health record-based clinical decision support tool protocol to reduce low-value antipsychotic prescriptions among older adults with Alzheimer’s and related dementias

  PLoS ONE · 2024-12-05

  erratumOpen access

  [This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277409.].

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Craig R. Fox

  Anderson University - South Carolina

  54 shared

• Robert B. Cialdini

  Arizona State University

  46 shared

• Jason N. Doctor

  University of Southern California

  39 shared

• Jeffrey A. Linder

  Northwestern University

  39 shared

• Daniella Meeker

  Linde (United States)

  38 shared

• Mark W. Friedberg

  Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

  37 shared

• Bennie Lindeque

  33 shared

• Shannon H. Kasperbauer

  University of Colorado Denver

  33 shared

Awards & honors

• Outstanding Teaching Award, GEMBA NUS-UCLA Program, UCLA And…
• Outstanding Teaching Award, GEMBA NUS-UCLA Program, UCLA And…
• Neidorf “Decade” Teaching Award, UCLA Anderson (2017)
• Citibank Teaching Award for Most Outstanding MBA Teacher, UC…
• Emerald Management Reviews Citation of Excellence Award (imp…