Dr. Yana Litovsky

Biography

Yana Litovsky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She holds a Ph.D. in Behavioral Decision Research from Carnegie Mellon University. At LSE, Yana teaches the Executive MSc in Behavioural Science program. Her research focuses on information preferences and curiosity-driven behavior, particularly in the context of health decision-making and misinformation. Her dissertation examined how individuals value information compared to material goods, revealing biases in preferences and patterns of judgment that often influence decision-making. This includes an exploration of loss aversion which helps to explain how individuals engage with information. In addition to conducting traditional lab and online experiments, Yana is involved in crowd-based research, applying innovative methodologies to study Covid-19 vaccine uptake and the psychology of news consumption to promote health-related decision-making. Her ongoing work extends into understanding curiosity in relation to misinformation in digital environments. Yana's research has received support from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).

Research Interests