Ian Axel Anderson (Ian A. Anderson) is an American researcher and artist born in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

His current research interests include how psychological and interpersonal processes are influenced by media use and human-computer interaction. In particular, his research work examines habits and automatic processes, online posting and scrolling behavior, hate speech and extremism, conspiracies and rumor, well-being, identity and stereotypes, and social media influence. His methodological approaches involve experimental and quasi-experimental designs, randomized controlled trials and computational natural language processing, qualitative methods, linear models, multilevel models, Bayesian models, and choice models.

He currently holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from Swarthmore College (2013), an MS in Management focused on Marketing and Consumer Psychology from INSEAD (2019), as well as an MA (2021) and PhD in social psychology (2024) from the University of Southern California, advised by Professor Wendy Wood.

He was recently awarded the science “Communicator of the Year 2023” award by USC Dornsife college of Letters, Arts, and Sciences for his public-facing communications about his research. His dissertation proposal, “The Anatomy of Twitter Habits” was selected as an honorable mention in the Psych of Tech Dissertation awards for 2022. His recent project on user sharing habits as a driver of misinformation spread (paper in PNAS)—with Gizem Ceylan and Wendy Wood, was featured at the Nobel Prize Summit in 2023.

His research has been published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), Motivation Science, Consumer Psychology Review, Current Opinion in Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and Psychological Bulletin.

His public-facing research and writing, and interviews have been featured in Le Huffpost (Huffpost France), WIRED, Fast Company, Ars Technica, The Washington Post, Forbes, BLAVITY, The Conversation, INSEAD Knowledge, Danse Macabre, Small Craft Warnings, CLINIC (SOLEIL) Magazine, Good Looks Collective, and others. His first book of poetry, Death & Los Angeles, was published in 2015. His first published poems appeared in print in 2009. His second manuscript, Binge Eater was longlisted as a runner-up in the PANK Books contest for 2020, and is undergoing revision.

As an artist, he has performed poetry regularly since 2013 at a multitude of venues, first through the Poetry Society of New York (PSNY), including the House of Yes, New York City Poetry Festival, Electric Forest, The Back Room, and multiple venues on tour in Los Angeles (for AWP 2016), Portland, and San Francisco. In 2016, he relocated to Paris, France, where he has performed consistently with Le Bordel De La Poesie, performed at English-language open mics, and was a featured reader at Paris Lit Up in 2018. He was also a semifinalist at CUPSI 2013 with Swarthmore College (OASIS). He currently performs regularly with the Los Angeles branch of PSNY at El Cid on Sunset.

He is currently living in Los Angeles, and will be continuing his research on social media as a Postdoctoral Scholar at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena with Professor Dean Mobbs.