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Yidan Yin

Color portrait of Yidan Yin

Management and Organization

Department Management and Organization

Email Address daniyin@psu.edu

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Yidan (Dani) Yin joined the Management and Organization Department in 2024. Before joining Smeal, Dani was a postdoctoral researcher at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

Dani's research centers on understanding how individuals navigate novelty and uncertainty in organizational settings, focusing on cognitive processes and strategies that enhance adaptation, decision-making, and interpersonal relationships.

Education

PhD, Management, University of California San Diego, 2021

BS, Psychology, Zhejiang University, 2013

Courses Taught

MGMT 355 – Lead and Chg in Org (3)
This course focuses on concerns with understanding yourself as a leader in organizations-especially organizations undergoing change.

Selected Publications

Yin Y., Barrett R., Williams M., Wiesenfeld B., Wakslak C., "Developing a General Construal Questionnaire." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2025
Yin Y., Jia N., Wakslak C. J., "AI can help people feel heard, but an AI label diminishes this impact." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121, no. 14, 2024, pp. e2319112121
Yin Y., Mueller J., Wakslak C., "Understanding How People React to Change: A Domain of Uncertainty Approach." Academy of Management Annals, 2024, pp. annals--2022
Yin Y., Savani K., Smith P. K., "Power increases perceptions of others’ choices, leading people to blame others more." Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol. 13, no. 1, 2022, pp. 170--177
Yin Y., Wakslak C. J., Joshi P. D., "“I” am more concrete than “we”: Linguistic abstraction and first-person pronoun usage.." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 122, no. 6, 2022, pp. 1004
Mueller J., Yin Y., "Unraveling the bias against novelty: Guiding the study of our tendency to desire but reject the new." Handbook of research on creativity and innovation, (Edward Elgar Publishing), 2021, pp. 267--289
Yin Y., Smith P. K., "When and how refusing to help decreases one's influence." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 95, 2021, pp. 104120
Lupoli M. J., Zhang M., Yin Y., Oveis C., "A conflict of values: when perceived compassion decreases trust." Journal of experimental social psychology, vol. 91, 2020, pp. 104049
Leong L. M., Yin Y., McKenzie C. R., "Exploiting asymmetric signals from choices through default selection." Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, vol. 27, 2020, pp. 162--169
Yin Y., Smith P. K., "Power and cognitive functioning." Current Opinion in Psychology, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 95--99

Research Impact and Media Mentions

"Want to Be a Better Listener? Take Lessons From a Chatbot.", The Wall Street Journal, Internet, www.wsj.com/tech/ai/dont-freak-out-about-empathic-chatbots-learn-from-them-7a976f75
"AI outperforms humans in providing emotional support", Earth.com, Internet, www.earth.com/news/ai-outperforms-humans-providing-emotional-support/
"AI ‘Traffic Light’ Systems Can Improve Customer Conversations", Forbes, Internet, www.forbes.com/sites/tomasgorny/2024/07/10/ai-traffic-light-systems-can-improve-customer-conversations/
"People are falling in love with — and getting addicted to — AI voices", Vox, Internet, www.vox.com/future-perfect/367188/love-addicted-ai-voice-human-gpt4-emotion
"USC study looks at AI's ability to make humans feel heard", Spectrum News, Television, spectrumnews1.com/ca/southern-california/education/2024/06/04/-artificialintelligence--usc--empathystudy
"Rich people actually do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor", Salon, Internet, www.salon.com/2021/05/18/rich-people-actually-do-have-trouble-understanding-what-its-like-to-be-poor/

Honors and Awards