Thursday, June 07, 2007

Behavioural Science Comes of Age

A recent edition of Science (May 18th) has declared that behavioural science has come of age.

Three reviews in that edition of Science illustrate how behavioral science is making progress in explaining such complex concepts as how people process emotionally significant information (Niedenthal, p. 1002), how morality can be both universal and culturally variable (Haidt, p. 998), and how children develop resistance to scientific explanations if those explanations contradict their common-sense views of the world (Bloom and Weisberg, p. 996).

Also in the same edition, Eric Gold, a behavioral economist at Fidelity Investments’ Center for Applied Behavioral Economics in Boston talks about career tracks for behavioural scientists.

Eric Gold on Behavioural Science Career Tracks

And here in the same edition, there is a discussion about careers in public opinion reseach and "neuromarketing".

1 comment:

Liam Delaney said...

that article with Eric Gold is fascinating. I really think behavioural economics, microeconometrics, policy evaluation and the like have the potential to create a completely new way of thinking about business and policy that will spill way of out the academy. PhD's in microeconomics will become more numerous and will be well-paid for doing interesting work. Eric Gold is a good example.