Behavioral Science with tracks in Psychology and Neuroscience

The new field of behavioral science seeks to understand how humans think and act within their environments and how policies can shape that behavior. For example, research showing the power of default options on decision making has led to the introduction of “opt-out” policies for decisions like becoming an organ donor or contributing to one’s retirement account, leading to marked increases in participation (e.g., millions of newly eligible organ donors). Across many institutions – governmental, educational, and corporate – effective interventions rely on an understanding of human behavior. Behavioral science has been commonly applied to problems in marketing, health science, financial investing, charitable giving, human factors and environmental design, and education.
The twin goals of behavioral science – understanding mechanisms of individual behavior and developing policies that shape that behavior – require students to develop a knowledge base drawn from several disciplines. Empirical behavioral science research draws upon the methods of psychology (and, more recently, neuroscience) to create well-designed experiments and measures. Computational modeling and statistics have become increasingly important for isolating the variables that shape behavior, especially when examining the consequences of large-scale interventions. Applications to policy often require disciplinary knowledge in behavioral economics, political psychology, marketing, or another field. And, considering the implications of new policies benefits from expertise in philosophy and ethics. In summary, an integrated course of study in behavioral science will combine disciplinary knowledge with the abilities to evaluate experimental designs, to draw conclusions from experimental data, and to link concepts across levels of analysis from individual behavior to societal policies.