ROBERT D. DEUTSCH, Ph.D.
CSP Senior Associate for International Communications
Dr. Robert Deutsch is a cognitive anthropologist specializing in communication and culture, with an emphasis on investigating how people develop their belief systems and form attachments to products, people, and events.
Dr. Deutsch's academic training and experience has been interdisciplinary in scope, combining anthropology, cognitive science, and media studies. He received a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine at Yeshiva University, where he served on the staff of the "Project on Human Communication," an initiative that pioneered methodologies for the ethological analysis of human behavior. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Deutsch also taught cultural anthropology and film studies at the City University of New York.
Upon receiving his doctoral degree, Dr. Deutsch was awarded a Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Institute of Mental Health Post-Doctoral fellowship to study communication practices of selected confined populations (e.g. brain damaged, juvenile delinquents, and schizophrenics). Concurrently, Rockefeller University supported his field research with chimpanzees, aimed at identifying nonlinguistic forms of ritual behavior. He has applied this research to analyzing audience reaction to cinema and television.
Dr. Deutsch then took a position at the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers University's Medical School, where he co-directed a joint degree program for medical residents in psychiatry and anthropology. While on staff at the Rutgers Medical School, he obtained a second doctorate in cultural anthropology from the Rutgers University.
Afterward, at the invitation of Nobel Laureate Konrad Lorenz, Dr. Deutsch conducted cross-cultural inquiries under the auspices of the Max Planck Society of the Federal Republic of Germany. During his years with the Society, Dr. Deutsch traveled to various pre-literate societies (e.g., Eipo of New Guinea, Yanomamo of Venezuela), as well as Third World and industrialized nations, to study how leading ideas emerge in different cultures.
Dr. Deutsch then served as an in-house consultant to the U.S. Government on behavioral and psychological factors related to persuasion in interpersonal and mass communication. In that capacity, he traveled throughout the world advising on "what sells" in public diplomacy and international negotiations.
After ten years of Government service, Dr. Deutsch opened BRAIN SELLS, a private public communications firm that focuses primarily on advising advertising agencies and corporations. He also counsels clients operating in crisis management. In particular, he has advised on the nature of "warning discourses" in the contexts of national security affairs and corporate communications.
Dr. Deutsch has published numerous articles on human nature, culture, and marketing in National Geographic Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His commentaries have appeared on ABC's Nightline, Good Morning America, and on the PBS series, Rights & Wrongs. He also lectures widely and is on the roster of the Washington Speakers' Bureau as a keynote speaker. Dr. Deutsch is presently writing a book titled The Design of Attachment: Enduring Principles that Bond People to Products, Ideas and Performances.
