Renée Gosline

Renée Richardson Gosline is a Senior Lecturer in the Management Science group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Initiative on The Digital Economy. She is a 2020 honoree on the Thinkers50 Radar List of thinkers who are “putting a dent in the universe,” and has been named one of the World’s Top 40 Professors under 40 by Poets and Quants. Dr. Gosline is an expert on the intersection between behavioral science and technology, and the implications for cognitive bias in human decision-making. She is a leading thinker on the science of digital brand strategy and has contributed her expertise to PBS, The BBC, The Economist, NPR, Forbes, and Psychology Today.

Dr. Gosline’s research examines how social structure and technology (e.g., Digital Customer Experience, Status, Social Media) affect performance and self-perception (as featured in her Tedx talk, “The Outsourced Mind”). Her projects have examined: how cognitive style predicts preference for AI versus human input; the interaction of brand status and placebo effects in performance; how consumers determine “real” from “fake” products; the circumstances under which customers perceive value in platforms; and the effects of storytelling in social media on trust and persuasion. In order to address these issues rigorously, Gosline employs experimental methodology, both in the field and the laboratory. She is currently conducting experiments on when and why humans prefer algorithmic to human input, and how algorithmic bias may result. Gosline is also currently writing a book called “The Human Algorithm” (MIT Press), which examines how AI affects our lives, and the benefits and perils of our digitally-mediated judgments.

Dr. Gosline enjoys teaching MBA and Executive Education classes on CX (Customer Experience), Brand strategy, Nudge Strategy, and Experimentation. She has also collaborated and consulted with a variety of organizations on CX and Leadership, including OECD, Procter & Gamble, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, TD Ameritrade, and Capgemini. Prior to academia, she was a marketing practitioner at LVMH Moet Hennessy and Leo Burnett.

Dr. Gosline received her Undergraduate, Master’s, and Doctoral education at Harvard University. She is a mother and wife, and serves on the advisory board of the National Kidney Foundation and the Scientific Affiliate Board of the Behavioral Economics group Ideas42.