A NEW DOCTORAL PROGRAM AT CARNEGIE MELLON

Degree Program

Ph.D. in Psychology and Behavioral Decision Research

(Joint degree in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Social and Decision Sciences)

Benefits

• A core curriculum emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches.
• Rigorous training in research design and analysis.
• Opportunities to work with internationally distinguished faculty at the forefront of research on human cognition, judgment, and decision making.
• Opportunities to select from multiple approaches (e.g., cognitive science, behavioral economics, social psychology) to the study of judgment and decision making.
• Opportunities to take course work and conduct research in related fields, such as organizational behavior, economics, public policy, and human-computer interaction.

The Carnegie Mellon Approach

Carnegie Mellon University is known as a place that successfully fosters research at the intersection of multiple disciplines.  The Doctoral Program in Psychology and Behavioral Decision Research draws on this tradition, by building on insights from psychology and economics to provide a descriptively realistic picture of human judgment and decision making.  Although there are core requirements for all students, the program is designed to make it easy to combine interests in several academic areas.

Coursework

Most of the course work in this program addresses Psychology and Research Methods; two complementary courses address Microeconomics and Behavioral Economics.   

• two SDS courses in BDR (88-702 and 88-703);
• one graduate-level course in microeconomics (90-908 or 47-800);
• four field-specific methodology courses;
• elective courses;
• one Psychology Core (in concentration area)
• Psychology Immigration Course
• one Ph.D. seminar in SDS (88-900).

Representative Research Topics

The faculty participating in this program have expertise in such areas as health psychology and health-related decision making, emotional influences on judgment and choice, value elicitation, interpersonal relationships, negotiations, environmental policy, cognitive architecture, and memory.

Admissions

The doctoral program spans two departments at CMU:  The Department of Social & Decision Sciences and the Department of Psychology.  Students applying to the program select a home department, then apply directly to it.  The home department will then share the student’s application with the other department.  The choice of home department ideally involves finding two or more faculty members with related research interests.  For lists of faculty research interests, please refer to the respective department websites:

·         Dept. of Social & Decision Sciences: http://www.hss.cmu.edu/departments/sds/src/p_faculty.php

·         Dept. of Psychology:  http://www.psy.cmu.edu/home/people/faculty/faculty.html

Students applying to Psychology for their home department should submit all materials by December 15, 2006.  Students applying to Social & Decision Sciences as their home department may submit material up until January 12, 2007. Students should submit their materials to their preferred home department (e.g., Psychology or Social & Decision ciences), and adhere to the deadline set by that department.  

Once admitted, the student's principal advisor must be in the home department (the department to which the student applies).

Financial Support

Through combinations of departmental funding, grants, and outside fellowships and scholarships, all admitted students receive full tuition and a living stipend for their first year of graduate study.  Assuming good academic standing in the program and mutually agreed upon fit with a faculty advisor in the home department, the program will undertake to provide students with full tuition and a living stipend for a total of four years.  Given uncertainties in funding sources, we cannot guarantee four full years of funding, but to date the two participating departments have been able to provide funding at that level for all students.

Representative Positions Held by Recent Graduates of Each Department

Recent graduates from the Department of Social and Decision Sciences:

Assistant Professor, Sloan School of Management, MIT

Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Management, Harvard University

Research Scientist, The RAND Corporation

Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Pennyslvania

Recent graduates from the Department of Psychology:

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder

Assistant Professor, Washington University, St. Louis

More Information

For program information, please contact any of the core faculty members:

• Professor Brooke Feeney (bfeeney@andrew.cmu.edu)
• Professor Robyn Dawes (rd1b@andrew.cmu.edu)
• Professor Baruch Fischhoff (baruch@cmu.edu)
• Professor Jennifer Lerner (jlerner@andrew.cmu.edu)
• Professor George Loewenstein (gl20@andrew.cmu.edu)
• Professor Dick Hayes (jh50@cmu.edu)

For application information, please contact the admissions coordinators or go to the web links below:

• Julie Wade (Department of Social & Decision Sciences)

jwade@andrew.cmu.edu  (Phone:  412-268-3665)

        http://www.hss.cmu.edu/departments/sds (please note that application materials for SDS are ONLY available on the web)

• Ms. Erin Donahoe (Department of Psychology)

donahoe@andrew.cmu.edu (Phone: 412-268-6026)

http://www.psy.cmu.edu/home/doc_programs/doc_programs.html