An overreliance on slow as opposed to fast learning may explain why problem gamblers will persist with losing strategies well after recreational gamblers have given up.
Experimental economist Marina Agranov demonstrates that committees that face uncertainty about the future size of a surplus and use a unanimity voting rule may result in more efficient outcomes as compared with a majority voting rule.
Professor Michael Alvarez is directing a yearlong project to examine which election conspiracy theories have taken hold in the 2024 election season and how to rebut them.
A new paper identifies the potential mechanisms through which social media can create unhealthy modes of human interaction.
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Meet the Social Sciences Faculty
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience; Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, Caltech Brain Imaging Center; Director, Caltech Brain Imaging Center
Dean Mobbs
Caltech allows researchers to be risky. Risk is an important part of science. It's where discovery occurs."
I am interested in how people think, or should think, in situations of uncertainty. This line of research tackles a basic problem: What are the consequences of accepting probability as a language for making predictions about the future?"
There are good reasons to do experiments. Applying theories in the real world before testing them, and ruining someone’s real life, seems too high a cost."
Here, political scientists are right next door to economists and right next door to neuroscientists. We often tackle similar problems, like collective decision making, but from very different approaches."
Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics; Director, Ronald and Maxine Linde Institute of Economic and Management Sciences
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal
We have to restore people's understanding that science and engineering solve a lot of social problems, while also sensitizing scientists and engineers to the reality that their solutions must find traction within societal structures that decide what succeeds and what fails.
Kay Sugahara Professor of Social Sciences and Statistics
Jonathan N. Katz
Money is very important in politics, but all the previous studies about campaign finance were restricted to relatively large donors, leading to a skewed picture of this important political activity. Given changes in technology, smaller donors are becoming both more numerous and important."
Data are powerful. Understanding human behavior with real-world data provides important insights into policy design aimed at improving consumer welfare and market efficiency."
Experiments are starting to get incorporated into mainstream economics but are still a relatively new tool. Caltech has been a powerhouse in experimental economics from the beginning, and it's so exciting to join the tradition."
There are other institutions that are wonderful at teaching and wonderful at research. But at Caltech, it seems to me that to be wonderful at teaching means that you teach the students what the frontier of research is—that teaching and research are not different things."
William D. Hacker Professor of Economics and Political Science, Emeritus
Charles R. Plott
Caltech’s continuing focus on the formalization, integration, and experimental testing of basic principles of economics and political science creates challenges, intellectual excitement, and an integrated body of science that continues to grow and find important applications that will span many decades."