PhD Behavioral Decision Making

[Jessica PV]

Hi everyone, 

I'm looking into pursuing a PhD in Behavioral Decision Making. My background is in Psychology. Does anyone know what would be the top 20 PhD Programs in Behavioral Decision Making? I was looking for a list but was unable to find such a list of ranking. I would really appreciate to hear your advice! Thank you very much in advance!

[MarineBluePsy]

A quick google search turned up this link that may be helpful to you.  It seems that such a program could be in a variety of departments such as business, psychology, or economics.  Not sure how these programs are ranked specifically, but you could probably contact these programs directly and find out if their programs are ranked and if so where you'd find that what the standards are for ranking.

[PokePsych]

I wouldn't stare myself down on rankings - especially when things are interdisciplinairy. What you may want to do is email profs about your interests and ask them if they are a) gonna take students, and b) whether they know other people who work in this area. In this way, you're usually able to create a list of people who are respected in the area and to whom others are paying attention - all good supervisors. Most people will keep repeating the same names I think

[eternallyephemeral]

Hi! I do this work at school and in my job, so I'm happy to help (you can respond here with your interests or PM me and we can discuss further).

Short answer is, there isn't really a ranking for JDM/BE programs. Many with that name are new and not necessarily better than just joining an econ/psych/marketing/management program that has BE researchers.

Unsurprisingly, Harvard has a behavioral insights group, with people from psych, government, law, public health, management, and probably more. Cornell, CMU, UCLA, Duke (where Dan Ariely is), U of Toronto, Boston U, MIT, NYU, Columbia, and places like that are all good. However, of course there are others with less prestigious names that are still good.

 

For any PhD, it's the specific advisor that is most important.