Meet the researcher: David Tuckett

My research is concerned with the role of narrative and emotion  in making consequential decisions under uncertainty -  radical uncertainty, when it cannot be assumed that the information we have about the world yesterday and today can in any simple way be optimised to help us decide what will achieve what we want tomorrow. So the applications are to investment, macroeconomics, Bank of England rate-setting, how to “level-up” communities outside London and the South East, or how to mitigate the effects of the current pandemic or prevent future ones. Conviction Narrative Theory focuses on how people (or organisations) make sense of data, simulate the outcome of actions and become convinced to act rather than be paralysed although in formal terms the possibility of success or failure both remain high. We explore the role of narrative and emotion in this space through interviews, econometric and algorithmic analyses  and standard experimental techniques.