Justin Brienza
Special guest
Justin joined UQ Business School in 2020, after teaching at the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. His teaching is focused on Organisational Behaviour, Manager Skiils and Communication, and Wise Leadership. Justin earned his Honors Bachelor of Science with a double degree in Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence and Psychology at the University of Toronto, and his Masters and PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of Waterloo.
Justin's principle research interest is in understanding how people reason through complex social problems, with interest in reducing bias and developing and practicing wisdom and balance. Justin's work has been published in prestigious scientific journals such as Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Journal of Intelligence, Nature Communications, Social and Personality Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, as well as the latest edition of the renown Cambridge Handbook of Wisdom. These studies have examined wisdom at interpersonal, group, organizational, and societal levels, in topics such as cooperation, social economic status, teamwork, intergroup bias, and leadership. Ongoing projects include studies on the dynamics of wise leadership, training for wisdom (Business and Army Leadership), media attention and science denialism, prejudice in artificial intelligence, self-sabotage, and gender pay-gap denialism.
Justin has presented his research at international conferences such as the Academy of Management, International Association of Conflict Management, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was presented with the Kellogg School of Management's Dispute Resolution Center Scholar Award. Justin serves as peer reviewer for journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Journal of Intelligence, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and Journal of Cognitive Development. Justin's work has been featured in popular media outlets such as TIME, NewsWeek, and Sciencemag.com, and one of his articles is in the top 10 most upvoted social psychology papers on Reddit.
Justin Brienza has been a guest on 1 episode.
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73: Special Series Episode 5: Wisdom Frontiers
October 26th, 2026 | 55 mins 50 secs
barry schwartz, cristine legare, dan mcadams, dilip jeste, emotions, eranda jayawickreme, exemplars, gordon pennycook, happiness, interventions, judgment, judith glück, justin brienza, kristján kristjánsson, laurie paul, meaning, measuring wisdom, metacognition, monika ardelt, narratives, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, social science, steven fleming, tom costello, training ethan kross, well being, wisdom
Can wisdom live beyond the individual, in the organizations we build, and the technologies we create? In the final episode of our special series, Dilip Jeste, Barry Schwartz, and Justin Brienza join Igor and Charles to explore the frontiers of wisdom research, from neuroscience to the design of wiser institutions. Dilip takes us inside the brain systems involved in empathy, emotion regulation, and perspective-taking, while explaining why measuring wisdom remains such a challenge. Barry turns to the organizations we spend our lives in, revealing how even well-intentioned people can make poor judgments when the culture around them gets in the way, and why better decisions depend on creating environments where people can learn from their mistakes. Justin asks how we might build wisdom into institutions themselves, from red-teaming and premortems to incentives that encourage dissent, stewardship, and collective responsibility. The series arrives at one final question: if we can build machines that are increasingly intelligent, what would it mean to make them wise?