Researching
My research lies at the intersection of money, social relationships, and well-being. I use lab and field experiments, text analysis, and qualitative methods to investigate consumer financial psychology — how the way we spend, split, and talk about money shapes the relationships and lives we build around it.
Hello. My name is Max Alberhasky. I'm an Assistant Professor of Marketing at California State University, Long Beach. I moved here from Austin, where I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business.
My work asks what happens to a relationship when money enters it — when a shared dinner becomes a Venmo request, when a gift's price signals something the giver never intended, when a fee shows up at checkout without explanation. I study these questions with lab and field experiments, text analysis, and qualitative methods.
Alongside the academic work, I write the Psychology, Money, and Happiness column at Psychology Today, and I speak with outlets like CBS, MarketWatch, and Maine Public Radio about the everyday psychology of spending.
Five threads run through my work. Each one starts from the same question: how does money change the way people relate to each other, and to themselves?
How peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo turn shared experiences into ledger entries — and make those experiences less enjoyable.
Why the income gap between giver and recipient shifts how much people spend, and what that spending is meant to say.
Why opaque add-on fees breed distrust in ways that equivalent transparent fees do not.
Why high-skill activities make people happier yet go unchosen, and how time and money trade off against happiness.
How saving and spending patterns become social signals — and how personality maps onto what people earn.
How brief interactions with neighbors and near-strangers in one's community increase prosocial behavior.
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I enjoy my interactions with students, and I bring insights from my own research into class with relevant, current examples that make marketing and consumer behavior concepts concrete.
Highest instructor evaluation in the department — 6.0 / 6, Fall 2024.
UndergraduateCore marketing course for undergraduate business majors at California State University, Long Beach.
UndergraduateHighest instructor evaluation — 5.0 / 5, Fall 2019. Recipient of the Fred Moore Award for Teaching Excellence, given to the top two assistant instructors at UT Austin each year.
UndergraduateMy column at Psychology Today translates research on spending, saving, and relationships for a general audience.
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I'm always glad to hear from students, collaborators, and journalists working on stories about money and behavior. The fastest way to reach me is email.