Stephen Read is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Southern California. His primary area of interest is in computational models of social reasoning and social behavior. He focuses on neural network models of personality and social behavior, legal and everyday decision making, causal reasoning, and causal learning. He is also interested in: models of human motivation; the creation of realistic personality in computer based intelligent agents in virtual reality training systems; coherence based and constraint satisfaction based models of decision making and impression formation; the structure and dynamics of human personality; and the use of interactive media in changing risky sexual behavior. His research specialties include: neural network models of social reasoning and personality knowledge structures in causal reasoning and decision making; narrative models of social explanation; use of interactive media to change risky social behaviors; structure and function of belief systems; and role of beliefs and attitudes in information processing.

 

Read received a B.A. in Psychology from Princeton University in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981.