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
Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics and History, Emeritus
Philip T. Hoffman
Caltech is the one place where you really can do interdisciplinary work, whether you are a professor or a student. You never stop learning—or advancing the frontiers of knowledge."
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?"
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."
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."
Caltech pioneered the use of mathematical models to explain political behavior, including voting and bargaining. The research I do would not be possible without these early contributions."
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."
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."
Richard N. Merkin Professor of Mathematical Finance
Jakša Cvitanić
We create an environment in which interdisciplinary, original research involving the social sciences and quantitative fields can thrive. It boils down to two things, which are education and research. There are not many places like Caltech where students can learn from experts from so many different fields in a natural way."
Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics; T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair; Director, T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience
Colin F. Camerer
One of the hallmarks of Caltech's HSS division, besides scientific excellence, is that people here wander and end up working on things in very unusual combinations."
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."