Dr. Nicole Sintov PhD

Assistant Professor of Behavior, Decision Making, and Sustainability
School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR)
The Ohio State University


Broadly, Dr. Nicole Sintov focuses on the role of individual-level behavior and decision-making in sustainable consumption with an emphasis on energy contexts, such as home energy use or energy-efficient technology adoption and use. Dr. Sintov often works on interdisciplinary teams in which I model consumer behavior in response to computer science- or engineering-enabled advances, such as electric vehicles and smart thermostats. The complexity of human behavior and decision-making makes for a rich topic with many possible avenues of investigation. Accordingly, Dr. Sintov’s scholarly agenda is not limited to a particular theory or specific domain area, but has centered around three conceptual questions that inform behavior-change interventions: (1) how do identity and other individual differences shape consumer response to sustainable innovations?; (2) what roles do cognitive biases play in consumer response to sustainable innovations?; (3) how do sustainability-related discussions among multiple consumers (e.g., in a household) impact behavior? Methodologically, Dr. Sintov’s work is grounded in behavioral science with a focus on quantitative methods (e.g., experimental, survey), often involving collection of high-resolution consumer (e.g., near real-time electric meter) data.

Projects

Publications

*Adams, I., Hurst, K.F., & Sintov, N.D. (2020). Experienced guilt, but not pride, mediates the effect of feedback on pro-environmental behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 71: 101476. doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101476

Sintov, N.D., Abou-Ghalioum, V.K., & White, L.V. (2020). The partisan politics of low-carbon transport: Why Democrats are more likely to adopt electric vehicles than Republicans in the United States. Energy Research and Social Science, 68: 101576. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101576

White, L.V., & Sintov, N.D. (2020). Health and financial impacts of demand-side response measures differ across sociodemographic groups. Nature Energy, 5: 50-60. doi:10.1038/s41560-019-0507-y • Selected media coverage: o AARP, Scientific American, KJZZ/NPR, Daily Telegraph, SF Chronicle

Sintov, N. D., White, L.V., & Walpole, H. (2019). Thermostat Wars? The roles of gender and thermal comfort negotiations in household energy use behavior. PLOS ONE, 4(11): e0224198. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0224198

Gomes, C., Dietterich, T., Barrett, C., Conrad, J. Dilkina, B., Ermon, S., Fang, F., Farnsworth, A., Fern, A., Fern, X., Fink, D., Fisher, D., Flecker, A., Freund, D., Fuller, A., Gregoire, J., Hopcroft, J., Kelling, S., Kolter, Z., Powell, W., Sintov, N., Selker, J., Selman, B., Sheldon, D., Shmoys, D., Tambe, M., Wong, W.- K., Wood, C., Wu, X., Xue, Y., *Yadav, A., Yakabu, A., & Zeeman, M.L. (2019). Computational Sustainability: Computing for a better world and a sustainable future. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 62: 20-29. DOI:10.1145/3339399

Sintov, N.D., Seyranian, & Lyet, A. (2019). Fostering adoption of conservation technologies: A case study with wildlife law enforcement rangers. Oryx: The International Journal of Conservation, 53(3), 479-483. doi: 10.1017/S0030605317001533

Sintov, N.D., Geislar, S., & White, L.V. (2019). The role of cognitive accessibility in proenvironmental behavioral spillover: Results from a community field experiment of household food waste management. Environment and Behavior, 51, 50-80. doi:10.1177/0013916517735638

White, L.V., & Sintov, N. D. (2018). Inaccurate consumer perceptions of monetary savings in a demandside response programme predict programme acceptance. Nature Energy, 3: 1101–1108. doi: 10.1038/s41560-018-0285-y

Sintov, N.D., & Schuitema, G. (2018). Odd couple or perfect pair? Tensions and recommendations for social scientist-industry partnerships in energy research. Energy Policy, 117, 247-251. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2018.03.021

Ryutov, T., Sintov, N., *Zhao, M., & John, R.J. (2018). Behavioral indicators of end-user compliance with organizational information security policies. Journal of Information Privacy and Security, 13, 260-281.

White, L.,V.& Sintov, N. (2017). You are what you drive: Environmentalist and social innovator symbolism drive electric vehicle adoption intentions. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 99, 94-113. doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2017.03.008

Sintov, N.D., & Schultz, P.W. (2017). Adjustable Green Defaults Can Help Make Smart Homes More Sustainable. Sustainability (special issue on Smart Homes), 9, doi:10.3390/su9040622

Schuitema, G., & Sintov, N. (2017). Should we quit our jobs? Challenges, barriers, and recommendations for interdisciplinary energy research. Energy Policy, 101, 246-250. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.11.043

Sintov, N., Kar, D., Nguyen, T., Fang, F., Hoffman, K., Lyet, A., & Tambe, M. (2017). Keeping it real: Using real-world problems to teach AI to Diverse Audiences. Artificial Intelligence Magazine. doi: 10.1609/aimag.v38i2.2733

Chen, B., & Sintov, N.D. (2016). Bridging the gap between technology adoption and protecting natural resources: Predicting intentions to adopt energy management technologies in California. Energy Research and Social Science, 22, 210-223. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2016.10.003

Merrill, R. & Sintov, N.D. (2016). An affinity to commons model of public support for environmental energy policy. Energy Policy, 99, 88-99. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.09.048 Last updated: 1.31.22 3

Sintov, N.D., Dux, E., Tran, A., & Orosz, M. (2016). What goes on behind closed doors? How college dormitory residents change to save energy during a competition-based energy reduction intervention. International Journal for Sustainability in Higher Education, 17, 451-470. doi: 10.1108/IJSHE-02-2015- 0027

Konis, K., Orosz, M., & Sintov, N. (2016). A window into occupant-driven energy outcomes: leveraging sub-metering infrastructure to examine psychosocial factors driving long-term outcomes of short-term competition-based energy interventions. Energy & Buildings, 116, 206-217. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2016.01.005

Kar, D., Fang, F., Delle Fave, F. M., Sintov, N., Tambe, M., and Lyet, A. (2016). Comparing Human Behavior Models in Repeated Stackelberg Security Games: An Extended Study. Journal of Artificial Intelligence, 240, 65-103. doi: 10.1016/j.artint.2016.08.002

Sintov, N.D. & Schultz, P.W. (2016). Unlocking the potential of smart grid technologies with behavioral science. In T. Brosch, D. Sander, and M.K. Patel (Eds.), Understanding the human factor of the energy transition: Mechanisms underlying energy-relevant decisions and behaviors, Frontiers Media. Pp. 82-89. ISBN 2889198804, 9782889198801.

Sintov, N.D., & Prescott, C.A. (2012). The influence of social desirability and item priming effects on selfreported pro-environmental behavior. Ecopsychology, 3, 257-267. doi: 10.1089/eco.2011.0043

Sintov, N.D., Kendler, K.S., Young-Wolff, K.C., Walsh, D., Patterson, D.G., & Prescott, C.A. (2010). Empirically defined subtypes of alcohol dependence in an Irish family sample. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 107, 230-236. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2009.11.003 Young-Wolff, K.C., Kendler, K.S.,

Sintov, N.D., & Prescott, C.A. (2009). Mood-Related Drinking Motives Mediate the Familial Association Between Major Depression and Alcohol Dependence. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 33, 1476-1487. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00978.x

Sintov, N.D., Kendler, K. S., Walsh, D., Patterson, D. G., & Prescott, C. A. (2009). Predictors of illicit substance dependence among individuals with alcohol dependence. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 70, 269-278. 10.15288/jsad.2009.70.269

Brown, S.A., Anderson, K.G., Schulte, M.T., Sintov, N.D. & Frissell, K.C. (2005). Facilitating youth selfchange through school-based intervention. Addictive Behaviors, 30, 1797-1810. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.07.003

White, L.V., & Sintov, N.D. (2020) Varied health and financial impacts of time of-use energy rates across sociodemographic groups raise equity concerns. Nature Energy, 5: 16-17. Book chapters

Doidge, M., Irwin, E., Sintov, N., & Wilson, R. (2020). Human behavior and adaptation. In P. Saundry, & B. Ruddell (Eds.), Introduction to the Food-Energy-Water Nexus, Springer. Last updated: 1.31.22 4

Sintov, N., Seyranian, V., & Tambe, M. (2018). Adoption of conservation technologies. In W. Moreto (Ed.), Wildlife Crime: From Theory to Practice, Temple University Press. Peer-reviewed conference proceedings

Sintov, N., Kar, D., Nguyen, T., Fang, F., Hoffman, K., Lyet, A., & Tambe, M. (2016). From the lab to the classroom and beyond: Extending a Game-Based Research Platform for Teaching AI to Diverse Audiences. Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 6th Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence, 4107-4112. Palo Alto: AAAI Press.

Gholami, S., Wylder, B., Brown, M., Thomas, D., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2016). Divide to Defend: Collusive Security Games. Proceedings of the 7th International meeting on Decision and Game Theory for Security.

Abbasi, Y.D., Ben-Asher, N., Gonzalez, C., Morrison, D., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2016). Adversaries Wising Up: Modeling Heterogeneity and Dynamics of Behavior. Proceedings of the 14th annual International Conference on Cognitive Modeling.

Gholami, S., Wylder, B., Brown, M., Sinha, A., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2016). SPECTRE: A Game Theoretic Tool for Preventing Collusion in Security Games (demonstration). Proceedings of the 15th annual International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).

Gholami, S., Wylder, B., Brown, M., Sinha, A., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2016). A Game Theoretic approach on addressing cooperation among human adversaries. Proceedings of the 15th annual International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).

Abbasi, Y.D., Ben-Asher, N., Gonzalez, C., Kar, D., Morrison, D., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2016). Know your adversary: Insights for a better adversarial behavioral model. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

Ford, B., Yadav, A., Singh., A., Brown, M., Sinha, A., Srivastava, B., Kiekintveld, C., Sintov, N., & Tambe, N. (2016). NECTAR: Game-theoretic factory inspection scheduling and explanation for toxic wastewater abatement. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).

Kar, D., *Fang, F., Delle Fave, F. M., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2016). Evaluating the robustness of SHARP: An adaptive human behavior model for repeated SSGs. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).

Sintov, N.D., Orosz, M.D., & Schultz, P.W. (2015). Personalized Energy Reduction Cyber-Physical System (PERCS): A gamified end-user platform for energy efficiency and demand response. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 9189, 602-613.

Ford, B., Nguyen, T., Tambe, M., Sintov, N., & Delle Fave, F. (2015). Beware the Soothsayer: From Attack Prediction Accuracy to Predictive Reliability in Security Games. Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security, 9406.

Abbasi, Y.D., Short, M., Sinha, A., Sintov, N., Zhang, C. and Tambe, M. (2015). Human Adversaries in Opportunistic Crime Security Games: Evaluating Competing Bounded Rationality Models. Proceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems. Last updated: 1.31.22 5

Kar, D., Fang, F., Delle Fave, F. M., Sintov, N., Sinha, A., Galstyan, A., An, B., & Tambe, M. (2015). Learning Bounded Rationality Models of the Adversary in Repeated Stackelberg Security Games. Proceedings of the 4th annual Adaptive Learning Agents Workshop at the Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-ALA).

Kar, D., Fang, F., Delle Fave, F. M., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2015). Conducting longitudinal experiments with behavioral models in repeated stackelberg security games on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Proceedings of the 4th annual Human-Agent Interaction Design and Models Workshop at the Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-HAIDM).

Kar, D., Fang, F., Delle Fave, F. M., Sintov, N., & Tambe, M. (2015). A game of thrones: When human behavior models compete in repeated stackelberg security games. Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).

Kar, D., Fang, F., Delle Fave, F. M., Sintov, N., Tambe, M., & van Wissen, A. (2015). Effectiveness of Probability Perception Modeling and Defender Strategy Generation Algorithms in Repeated Stackelberg Games. Proceedings of the 29th annual Conference for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

Kwac, J., Tan, C.-W., Sintov, N., Flora, J., & Rajagopal, R. (2013). Utility customer segmentation based on smart meter data: Empirical study. Proceedings of the IEEE SmartGrid Comm meeting (pp. 720-725).

Sintov, N.D, Desario, G., & Prescott, C.A. (2010). Effectiveness of a competition-based Intervention in Promoting Energy Conservation in a University Residential Setting. The climate for energy efficiency is now (pp.7-322 – 7-336). Washington, DC: American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy