For researchers
If you study advice, trust, conversation or decision-making, we would like to learn from you, and to help your work reach the people it is about.
Why we are writing to you
Why we are writing to you
ADVICEdge brings together what the old texts and modern research say about advice, in plain language and with every source named.
Most people make their biggest decisions on someone else’s advice, and almost none of them have read the research on how that goes wrong. We would like to close some of that gap, carefully and with the people who did the work. We are practitioners, not a university, so we come to this as learners. What we can offer is an audience, access to practitioners, and a commitment to getting the details right.
Read our editorial standards, including the interests we declare.
Ways to work together
Six ways to collaborate, from twenty minutes to a full study
A conversation about your work
A recorded conversation of about twenty minutes on your research, what surprised you and what it means for people choosing whom to trust. Published here and on the Real Conversations podcast, with your approval of the final version.
Check our summary of your study
If your work appears in the Library, we would be grateful if you would check our plain-language summary. Corrections are published, and credited if you wish.
Help test the ADVICEdge Test
The twenty questions have not yet been validated as a measure. We would welcome a partner to study their reliability and structure, run under your institution’s ethics approval.
Reach practitioners and families
Ritu works with advisors, corporate teams and internationally mobile families across the Gulf and India. We can help researchers find participants for interviews and surveys, within your ethics process.
Teach, speak or co-host
Workshops, panels and talks that bring research to practitioners, from leadership rooms to advisory firms and conferences.
Suggest what we should read
A text, a study or a line of research that belongs in the Library. Pointers to work we have missed are always welcome.
Research agenda
Questions we are exploring
These are the questions behind the Library and the framework. If your work speaks to one of them, or challenges how we have framed it, we would be glad to hear from you.
When should we take advice we are inclined to ignore?
People reliably give their own opinion more weight than an advisor’s, and usually choose between views rather than combining them. We would like to understand when this discounting protects people and when it costs them.
Start with: Yaniv and Kleinberger, 2000 · Soll and Larrick, 2009
How do people judge an advisor they cannot yet check?
Without a visible track record, confidence tends to win trust whether or not it is deserved. Which signals, questions or habits help people judge an advisor earlier and more accurately?
Start with: Sah, Moore and MacCoun, 2013
What do incentives do to advice, and to the people receiving it?
Studies of disclosure, fees and misconduct suggest that knowing how an advisor is paid helps less than we assume. We are interested in what does help clients in practice.
Start with: Cain, Loewenstein and Moore, 2005 · Foerster et al., 2017 · Egan, Matvos and Seru, 2019
How do families decide whom to trust from a distance?
Many families now make large decisions, about property, education or investment, in a country where they do not live, through advisors they may never meet. We have found little research on how that trust forms, and would welcome pointers.
Pointers to relevant research are especially welcome here.
Does meeting in person change how advice is received?
Voice connects people more than text, deep conversations go better than expected, and identical words feel more caring when we believe a person wrote them. Does the same hold for whether advice is followed?
Start with: Kumar and Epley, 2021 · Kardas, Kumar and Epley, 2022 · Rubin, Perry et al., 2025
Can the qualities of a good advisor be measured?
The ADVICEdge framework names five qualities: alignment, depth, voice, integrity and compassion. Can they be measured reliably, and do they predict outcomes that matter to clients?
Start with: The ADVICEdge Test · The framework
What changes when the advisor is software?
AI models tend to agree with the people they advise, and people value the same words differently when they believe a human wrote them. What should people ask of any advisor, human or not?
Start with: Cheng, Jurafsky et al., 2026 · Rubin, Perry et al., 2025
Get in touch
Start with a short note
Tell us about your work and which of the above interests you. Ritu reads every message and replies within two working days.