The goal of the Ph.D. seminar is to bring students to the frontier of current topics in behavioral science in order for them to be able to formulate interesting and feasible research studies of their own.
The first part (taught by Professor Kirgios) will cover current topics related to the psychology of intuitive belief and judgment, including 1) demand-side causes of inequality, 2) identity management strategies and their consequences, and 3) interventions to reduce inequality. These topics have been selected to introduce you to the ideas that I (Erika) have been playing with in hopes of inspiring collaboration.
The second part (taught by Professor Koch) will cover current topics related to 1) information ecology, 2) social evaluation, and 3) truth judgment (you are correct to assume that these three fields of research do not overlap a great deal). As in Part 1 of the course, these topics have been selected to introduce you to the ideas that I (Alex) have been playing with in hopes of inspiring collaboration.
Students are expected to read the assigned articles in advance, actively participate in class discussions, generate original research ideas, and provide critical and constructive comments on classmates’ research ideas. The main purpose of this course is to stimulate research, and as part of this class you will be asked to develop two mini research proposals (one should be related to the topics covered in the first half of the class and the second to the second half of the class). Each proposal should include an experiment that you could conduct. After getting feedback on the two proposals, students will choose one of the two to present to class and to submit as a final paper.
