The Center for Behavioral Research (CBR) relies on interdisciplinary behavioral research to better understand how economic, environmental, and social forces influence decision making in areas of interest to businesses, governmental and non-governmental entities, and policy makers.
CBR’s mission is to enhance social welfare through behavioral research.
Using insights from the behavioral sciences, we identify, design, and test the effectiveness of interventions aiming to address significant social problems.
Research Areas
Although every now and then we explore new areas, CBR has four active lines of research:
Poverty & Inequality
This line of research focuses on investigating the psychological differences between the poor and the rich and examining the behavioral consequences these differences engender. Our interest covers a broad range of topics including but not limited to charitable donations, patterns of cooperation, healthy eating, and financial decision-making.
Sustainability
Although we are learning more and more about the importance of sustainability, there are numerous psychological barriers that prevent people from taking action to the extent necessary to secure sustainable development. This line of research focuses on identifying and devising strategies to address the barriers to sustainable.
Political Polarization
This line of research focuses on investigating not only how political ideology shapes judgment and decision-making but also on devising strategies to attenuate polarization.
Public Health
We direct our efforts to address two main issues that affect public health across the globe: healthy eating and COVID-19.