Hi there!

My name is Olivia, and I’m a psychology PhD student at the University of Zurich. Broadly speaking, I study decision making - what the relevant decisions are that we encounter in life, and what factors influence these decisions.

I’m also a big theater enthusiast, and a couple years ago some friends and I started our own theater company called Copper Tongues for which I wrote our first (and so far only) play.

In this Substack, I’ll be trying to combine these two passions of mine to create research-based content in a style that is less constrained (and dare I say more theatrical?) than academic journals typically require.

What you can expect from Observations Indicate

The name of this blog is inspired by a common phrase used in the Discussion section of many academic papers where researchers navigate the gray area of explaining what their findings actually mean. Because the claims of a single article are never definitive, researchers (rightfully) result to careful wordings such as “observations indicate”, “the data suggest”, “results imply” (fill in your favorite catchphrase here)…

This is what I’ll be attempting here: Diving into psychological questions that fascinate me but for which I can at best uncover initial observations. As such, my goal is to be transparent and open in what I write about and to not base my claims purely on my opinions but always try to include quantitative information.

Feel free to reach out with any questions or requests at info@observations-indicate.com.

And if you like what you read, consider subscribing to support my work and get access to the publication archive - thank you!