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Art Markman

Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Founding Director, HDO Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor, Departments of Psychology and Marketing Executive Director, IC² Institute (2018-2021)

HDO Bachelor’s Program Course: HDO301: Introduction to Human Dimensions of Organizations HDO Master’s Program Course: HDO384: Organizational Inertia, Decision-Making, and Change  HDO One-Day Professional Seminars:  Maximizing Mental Agility  &  Behavior Change & Influence

[email protected] Education:  Ph.D., University of Illinois

Biography:  Dr. Markman is the Annabel Irion Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He was also the founding director of the HDO program. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of Illinois and worked at Northwestern University and Columbia University before coming to The University of Texas at Austin in 1998.

Dr. Markman has published more than 150 scholarly works about cognitive science, decision-making and organizational behavior. He is also the founding director of the HDO program. Dr. Markman and several of his books, including Smart Thinking , Smart Change , Bring Your Brain to Work , and Brain Briefs (co-written with Dr. Bob Duke), have been featured on Dr. Phil and other programs.

Beyond the UT campus, he is probably best known as the co-host of KUT’s “Two Guys on Your Head” radio show and podcast, where he and Butler School of Music professor Bob Duke explore the human mind with a unique mix of research, humor and everyday relevance.

Art Markman

Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing

Department:     UT Department of Psychology

Dr. Art Markman is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Founding Director of the Program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. He got his ScB from Brown University and his PhD from the University of Illinois. Before coming to the University of Texas, Art taught at Northwestern University and Columbia University. Art's research explores thinking. He has studied the way people form and use analogies, the mechanisms of decision making, the modes that allow people to form categories, and the influences of motivation on reasoning.

Art has always been interested in bringing insights from Cognitive Science to a broader audience. To that end, he writes blogs for Psychology Today and Fast Company and co-hosts a radio show and podcast called Two Guys on Your Head. He consults for companies interested in using Cognitive Science in their businesses. He is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Dr. Phil Show and the Dr. Oz Show. He has written a number of books including Smart Thinking, Habits of Leadership, and Smart Change.

When he's not doing things related to Cognitive Science, Art can be found spending time with his family or playing tenor sax in a blues band.

Ph.D, University of Illinois

BS, Brown University

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Art Markman

Art Markman, Ph.D., is Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. He got his Sc.B. in Cognitive Science from Brown and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois. He has published over 150 scholarly works on topics in higher-level thinking including the effects of motivation on learning and performance, analogical reasoning, categorization, decision making, and creativity. Art serves as the director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas. Art is also co-host of the NPR radio show Two Guys on Your Head , produced by KUT Radio in Austin, and author of the Popular Psychology blog Ulterior Motives , which is about the interface between motivation and thinking.

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Art Markman Ph.D.

Art Markman, Ph.D. , is Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. He got his Sc.B. in Cognitive Science from Brown and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois. He has published over 150 scholarly works on topics in higher-level thinking including the effects of motivation on learning and performance, analogical reasoning, categorization, decision making, and creativity. Art serves as the director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas. He spent 9 years as executive editor of the journal Cognitive Science and currently serves as a member of the editorial board of Cognitive Psychology . Art is also co-host of the radio show and podcast Two Guys on Your Head produced by KUT Radio in Austin.

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Art Markman

Art Markman, PhD is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology, Human Dimensions of Organizations and Marketing and Vice Provost of Continuing and Professional Education and New Education Ventures at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written over 150 papers on topics including reasoning, decision making, and motivation. Art brings insights from cognitive science to a broader audience through his blogs for Psychology Today and Fast Company as well as his radio show and podcast Two Guys on Your Head produced by NPR affiliate KUT. He is the author of several books including Smart Thinking, Smart Change, Brain Briefs, and Bring Your Brain to Work.

• –present Professor of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
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Dr. Art Markman

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Cognitive psychologist.

After pushing aside economics and physics as areas of study in college, Dr. Art Markman has built a reputation as one of the most well-respected cognitive psychologists in the country.

He earned a bachelor's degree in cognitive science from Brown University and went on to get his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1992. After graduating, Dr. Markman spent five years as an assistant professor in the psychology department at Columbia. Now at the University of Texas-Austin, Dr. Markman balances his teaching duties with his research interests.

He still teaches a number of classes and is the executive editor of the journal Cognitive Science. His research interests include how people process similarity and analogy comparisons, category learning and decision making, the way that motivational factors affect learning, decision making, and cognition more generally.

How did you know you wanted to study psychology? When did you first become interested in the subject?

The story I always tell is that I went to college assuming I would study economics or physics. But when I got there, I didn’t like the economics classes and the physics classes didn’t like me.  Along the way, I took some computer science, anthropology, philosophy, and psychology.  Midway through my sophomore year, I was sitting down with an advisor, and they pointed out that all of those classes would satisfy major in cognitive science.

So I took very few actual psychology classes as an undergraduate, but one time I found myself in a computer science class and I remember that we read a paper that had a psychology experiment in it. The teacher made a snide comment about psychology experiments and I remember giving an impassioned defense on doing research on people and I started to realize maybe I am a psychologist. Ultimately I ended up going into a PhD program and that was the start.

Why did you decide to stay in school and get your PhD rather than just pursuing a psychology career with an undergraduate degree?

I was always interested in research and trying to push the boundaries of what we understand, and the PhD is a research degree first and foremost.

Why cognitive psychology instead of a different type of psychology?

My real interest was in trying to understand how people think and that’s what cognitive psychology is all about. I certainly have tried to stay multidisciplinary, and I have published papers in psychology and philosophy journals and even now in marketing and consumer behavior journals, but the field itself has these artificial disciplinary lines so that regardless of what you end up studying you need to end up reaching across those disciplines to make progress.

How would you describe cognitive psychology to someone who wouldn’t understand it?

Cognitive psychology is the area that is focused primarily on how people think. If you are interested in all of the aspects of what it means to be thinking, ranging from the moment you open your eyes all the way through how we do complex things like solve difficult problems or act creatively, then you will be interested in cognitive psychology.

What are some of your primary responsibilities in your current role?

As a faculty member at a university, there is a tremendous amount of flexibility to create a job that fits your interests. And as a result, my own job responsibilities have changed significantly over my career. I just finished 21 years as a teacher and if you look at my colleagues they have taken different types of career paths and I give this as a preamble because it is pretty interesting.

The typical faculty job is about splitting time between teaching, research, and service. Teaching is pretty self-explanatory, though I get to teach both undergraduate and graduate classes. As for research, I still do new research projects in collaboration with students and colleagues and then write up the results for journals. The service aspect is about things like helping the university run, but also helping the field more broadly by doing things like being the editor of the Journal of Cognitive Science, or doing a lot of outreach so that a lot of people are exposed to cognitive psychology that wouldn’t have been otherwise.

I try to write things like blogs that would be read by a wider audience so they can get a sense of what psychologists do.  Also, some people won’t listen to what you have to say unless they pay for it, so I have done some consulting companies.

Right now, I am the director of a new education program called the Human Dimensions of Organizations. We are creating a curriculum aimed at people in business and non-profits that will teach them about the humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences so that they can understand people and how they think, and then they can use that knowledge in a business context.

Why did you choose a career path in academia rather than in a laboratory?

I was always most interested in research and 20 years ago when I got my degree, the academic path was the main path you could go. That’s changed in the intervening time because the broader world has discovered psychology.

There are a lot more companies right now that are engaged in research in the cognitive sciences, like product design companies or Disney which is studying the influence of advertisements. Those opportunities exist now when they didn’t before so I ended up in academia. It wasn’t really a choice per se; it was really the only path.

Can you give me an example of a recent research project? What sort of research was it? How did you conduct it?

Here is an example. Broadly speaking, we tend to have both approach motivations – which are motivations to achieve desirable things – and avoidance motivations – which are motivations to avoid noxious things. We wanted to look at how those motivations affected your desire to learn new things and explore new opportunities, that’s been one big chunk of where my research has been broadly.

You can do things to manipulate people’s motivations, so I can tell you that if you do well in my experiment, then you can win a ticket in a raffle ticket, which will engage your approach motivation. Or I can give you the raffle ticket at the beginning of the experiment and say you can keep it if you do well. So generally speaking, we are manipulating people’s motivations and rewards so we can then tease apart how different motivations affect you.

Your work seems exhausting; do you ever get burned out and want to try something new?

No because academia as a discipline provides all of these opportunities for keeping yourself busy by doing something else. If I had just been a teacher, or just been a researcher, or just been a writer, then yeah, I could imagine getting burned out because at some point you might just begin to feel like you have exhausted your energy for that activity.

But for me, I could find other opportunities to do something else. It can definitely be a lot of long hours, but you are always doing a huge number of different things. It’s not really just one job, it’s really seven jobs.

What are some of the most rewarding aspects of your job?

The job has its rewards in lots of way. Successfully publishing papers is great, especially when you see your ideas picked up by other people. Publishing a paper that no one reads isn’t that much fun, so seeing that your ideas matter to people outside of academia is really cool.

One of the reasons I enjoy talking to people at companies is that I see our research affect people do things differently in other aspects of their work. Also, teaching is a lot of fun. I have taught lots of classes and just knowing that you said something that made someone think differently is nice and it’s great to see people succeed and people who get interested in the subject.

Are their aspects of your profession that you would like to see changed?

I think there are two things. One is that I think academic psychology doesn’t do a great job of letting potential students know what all of the career path options are. A lot of students come into psychology and think their main job prospect is to be a clinician. Well, the helping wing of psychology is big and important, but I think we don’t do a good job of letting people know about all these other opportunities that are out there.

Secondly, I think that in the current environment, universities are under attack from a financial standpoint. There is a lot of discussion about whether a college education is valuable and states are cutting back on allocations to public universities. It worries me to think that we will put ourselves in a position where only those with the resources will be able to afford to get a college education.

Looking back, would you change anything about your career path if you could do it all over again?

Oddly enough, I look back on my career and I wouldn’t change a thing. It has gone as well as I could possibly hope, and not because of anything I did, things just worked out for me. I’d like to think I was prepared for opportunities that came my way, but I have been really lucky and honestly wouldn’t change thing.

What sort of advice would you pass along to students who are interested in following your footsteps?

Also, you don’t have to be smart to get a PhD , you have to be persistent. It’s not the smartest folks who survive this, it is the ones who get things done.  But that requires a lot of effort.  You just won’t put in that degree of effort if you don’t love the work; otherwise it’s a monumental chore.

If you would like to learn more about the process of becoming a Cognitive Psychologist see our becoming a cognitive psychologist page.

For more information on Dr. Markman:

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Dr. Art Markman is currently working on the Human Dimensions of Organizations

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Art Markman’s Bio

Art Markman was named Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, effective July 1, 2021. As Vice Provost, Markman provides strategic oversight and planning for the university’s credit-bearing programs and non-credit open-enrollment, certificate and custom programs aimed at non-traditional students. He also oversees the development of innovative education offerings.

Markman, the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing, joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. Previously he spent five years as an Assistant Professor at Columbia University after completing his Ph.D. in psychology in 1992 at the University of Illinois. Markman holds a B.S. in cognitive science from Brown University.

He has played many roles at the University of Texas including Interim Director of the Brain Imaging Center from 2009-2010 and Founding Director of the Human Dimensions of Organizations program in the College of Liberal Arts from 2011-2018. He began his role as Executive Director of the IC² Institute in 2018, stepping down in December 2021.

Markman has always been interested in bringing insights from his research to a broader audience. To that end, he is a prolific writer and frequent contributor to Psychology Today, Fast Company and the Harvard Business Review.

Markman has published more than 150 scholarly works about cognitive science, decision-making and organizational behavior. Dr. Markman has also written several books for general audiences including  Smart Thinking ,  Smart Change ,  Bring Your Brain to Work  and  Brain Briefs  (co-written with Dr. Bob Duke).

Beyond the UT Austin campus, he is probably best known as the co-host of KUT’s “Two Guys on Your Head” radio show and podcast, where he and Butler School of Music professor Bob Duke explore the human mind with a unique mix of research, humor and everyday relevance. He also plays saxophone in the Austin ska band Phineas Gage.

• [email protected]

Dr. Art Markman is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is now executive director of the IC2 Institute. IC2 is a think-and-do tank that focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship. The current mission of the institute is to explore rural and small city economic development in Texas, the US, and around the world. He is also the Founding Director of the Program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. He earned his ScB from Brown University and his PhD from the University of Illinois. Before coming to the University of Texas, Art taught at Northwestern University and Columbia University. Art’s research explores thinking.

He has studied the way people form and use analogies, the mechanisms of decision making, the modes that allow people to form categories, and the influences of motivation on reasoning. Art has always been interested in bringing insights from Cognitive Science to a broader audience. To that end, he writes blogs for Psychology Today, Fast Company and Inc. and co-hosts a radio show and podcast called Two Guys on Your Head. He consults for companies interested in using Cognitive Science in their businesses. He is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Dr. Phil Show and the Dr. Oz Show. He has written a number of books including Smart Thinking, Habits of Leadership, Smart Change, and Brain Briefs. When he’s not doing things related to Cognitive Science, Art can be found spending time with his family or playing tenor sax in a blues band.

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Khabarovsk: A Mediterranean Dream in Russia

Khabarovsk Bridge across the Amur River. Source: Itar Tass

Sparkling new cathedrals that blend in with fine 19th century architecture, a thriving cultural scene, and the proximity of the Taiga make this city on the great Amur River one of the most diverse in Russia.

With traces of some of the great cities of the Baltic Coast, you’d easily be mistaken for thinking you are 8000 kilometres away from the Russian Far East, but just 30 kilometres separate Khabarovsk from Manchurian China. There is, however, no hint of Asia in this city of 620,000, the last major stop on the Siberian railroad before Vladivostok.

Founded in 1858, everything from its broad tree-lined avenues, pre-Soviet heritage buildings, trams, quaint cafes, squares with fountains and a buzzing riverside, is redolent of Europe.

The city has a laidback Mediterranean feel in the summer, with sun-bathers thronging the riverside beaches to work on their tans. While summers are even hotter and more humid than those in Mumbai, temperatures plunge sharply in the winters and average around minus 30 degrees Celsius. If you like, you can take long walks on the frozen Amur river.

Famous for its ornate fountains, the city’s Lenin Square attracts hordes of skaters, local artists and families in the evenings. In the winters, the square hosts ice sculpture festivals and one of the largest New Year trees in the region.

Khabarovsk is just the perfect city you can explore through leisurely walking. Another relaxed way to savour life in the city is to take its trams, which connect the city centre to many outlying areas.

While walking through the Muravyova-Amurskovo Street, you encounter fine brick buildings from the 19th century as well as pre-Russian Civil War architecture that has been painfully preserved by the proud administration of the city. 

Lenin Square in Khabarovsk.   Source: Itar Tass

The city literally breathes history. The Muravyova-Amurskovo Street, for example, has five museums. The regional history museum is probably the best in the Russian Far East and showcases the culture of the indigenous people of the region, besides an excellent section dedicated to the Russian Civil War. The brick building was built in 1894 and lived to tell the tale of the brutal war between the Reds and the Whites.

While the city is proud of its Soviet past, with several monuments dedicated to the USSR and the partisans, who fought against foreign armies, there has also been a religious renaissance in Khabarovsk. Viktor Ishaev, a former governor, played a large role in the reconstruction of Russian Orthodox Churches, destroyed during Stalin’s purges. The imposing Uspenya Bozhey Matery (Divine Mother of God) Cathedral is one such replica and is just above the riverfront.  The city is home to the largest Orthodox Church in the Russian Far East: the golden-domed Church of the Transfiguration, which is probably the most visible building one sees from the aircraft, while landing in the city.

A stone’s throw away from the Transfiguration church is the majestic World War II memorial. It stands as a testament to the patriotism of the citizens of the Russian Far East, who lost their lives in the war against Nazi Germany, thousands of kilometres away from their hometown.

Most of the city’s attractions are close to the riverside, including a central park that stretches for about 1.5 kilometres to a hill top from where you get the best views of the city. The city owes its existence to Count Nicholai Muravyov-Amurskiy, and there’s a large statue of the founder, who was the governor general of Eastern Siberia. The area around the statue is a favourite spot for couples and when it comes to romantic settings, very few places in the country can match the sight of an autumn full moon over the Amur River, reflecting on the golden domes of a nearby cathedral.

The riverside is buzzing with activity, and has several cafes and restaurants with live rock bands performing late into the night.  There are also several hydrofoil services for those that want to cruise the Amur. A 90-minute cruise is a wonderful way to observe the illuminated riverside architecture at night, but there are longer cruises north to the cities of Komsomolsk-na-Amure and Nikolayevsk-na-Amure. These cruises are a great way to explore some of the most stunning and sparsely populated areas in all of Russia.

The park of Khabarovsk.   Source: Lori Legion Media

The Great Outdoors

No trip to Khabarovsk is complete without a picnic in the forests near the city. Many residents of the city have summer cottages or ‘dachas’ in an area called Voronezh-1, an ideal place for a barbeque, beer and folk music. There are several forest trails in the area, which is strikingly beautiful in the autumn.

However, those seeking adventure head straight for Peak Heksir, which is only about 970 metres above sea level but is a difficult trek through thick forests. The great Ussuriskaya Taiga begins in this forest, which is home to the Amur Tigers, the largest tigers in the world. The tigers have the advantage of camouflage in the autumn, but can be spotted in the winter, when blankets of snow envelop the mountain range. The forests are also inhabited by the Amur leopards, who are incredibly difficult to spot.

The path to Heksir offers splendid views of Khabarovsk and the domes of the city’s cathedrals are visible from the peak. But the piece de resistance of Heksir is the view of the Russia-China border.  The last stretch of Russian territory is at the intersection of the Amur and the Ussuri rivers. All you can see of China is a stretch of forests and there aren’t any human settlements for miles from the border.  Special permissions need to be arranged for both Russians and foreigners to climb the peak, since it’s in a politically sensitive area.

Shantar Archipelago.   Source: RIA Novosti

Khabarovsk is also close to the isolated Shantar Archipelago, a string of islands, which are only accessible in the non-winter months. This group of 15 islands in the Sea of Okhotsk are famous for their rocky cliffs and spruce forests. The archipelago is a wildlife lover’s paradise in the summer. You can spot Bearded Seals, Bowhead Whales and the endangered Western Grey Whales. Bears are aplenty in the islands, but unfortunately, each summer, there are reports of campers getting killed by bears. Wildlife experts attribute many of these cases to reckless behaviour on the part of tourists from cities. The islands are accessible by helicopter from Khabarovsk as well as via fishing trawlers that make the most of the four months a year they have before the ice flows merge the archipelago with the mainland.

Ajay Kamalakaran was the editor of The Sakhalin Times from 2003 to 2007.

All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

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THE 10 BEST Khabarovsk Museums

Museums in khabarovsk.

• Specialty Museums
• Art Galleries
• History Museums
• Science Museums
• Art Museums
• Military Museums
• 5.0 of 5 bubbles
• 4.0 of 5 bubbles & up
• Good for a Rainy Day
• Budget-friendly
• Good for Kids
• Good for Couples
• Good for Big Groups
• Adventurous
• Hidden Gems
• Honeymoon spot
• Good for Adrenaline Seekers
• Things to do ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings, photos, and popularity.

1. Khabarovsk Regional Museum Named After N.I. Grodekov

2. Okladnikov Archaeology Museum

3. Museum World of Talking Machines

4. Fishes of Amur River Museum

5. Military-Historical Museum of The Krasnoznamenny Far East Military District

6. Museum of The History of Amur Bridge

7. Museum of History of Khabarovsk

8. Artservatory

9. Far Eastern Art Museum

10. Fedotov Art Gallery

11. Museum of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

12. museum of the pacific state university.

13. SKV-Gallery

14. Energy Museum

15. Geological Museum

16. Museum of Gasification of the Far East

17. Gallery Salon List

What travelers are saying.

• Khabarovsk Regional Museum Named After N.I. Grodekov
• Museum of The History of Amur Bridge
• Military-Historical Museum of The Krasnoznamenny Far East Military District
• Fishes of Amur River Museum
• Museum World of Talking Machines
• Okladnikov Archaeology Museum