The Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences (SDOS) Program brings together the subspecialties of Social Psychology, Decision Sciences, and Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The goal of our graduate training is twofold: (a) to enable students to acquire ‘multilingual’ skills in the scientific approaches and methods of these three sub-disciplines of psychology, (b) to acquire an in-depth expertise in one (or more) of these areas. Our program is based on the belief that exposure and familiarity with these three, naturally intersecting, domains will augment our graduates’ ability to carry out problem-focused research that crosses area boundaries and that is of increasing relevance in the social and behavioral sciences. The following is a brief description of the three component areas of SDOS, and their main research foci:
Social Psychology. Social psychologists examine behavior, thoughts, and feelings as they relate to social situations. Topics includes social cognition, attitudes, goal systems, attributions, stereotypes, person memory, dyadic and group interactions, social influence, group decision making, relationships, prosocial behavior, terrorism, and shared knowledge.
Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Industrial-Organizational psychologists examine people as they interact in organizations and structured groups. Topics include leadership in organizations, teams, social networks, negotiation and conflict, diversity, work motivation, judgments of fairness in organizations, organizational climate and culture, employee selection and training, and measurement of behavior in organizations.
Judgment and Decision Making. Decision scientists examine the basic processes involved in judgment and choice utilizing a combination of experimental and quantitative modeling techniques. Topics include economic decision making, advice taking, assessments of risk, group decision making, heuristic processes, overconfidence, probability judgment, hypothesis generation, and hypothesis testing, and the cognitive and personality variables affecting these phenomena.
Students trained in SDOS are exposed to a wide variety of research methods and analytic tools, including laboratory experiments, field research, mathematical modeling, hierarchical linear modeling, longitudinal modeling, and cross-cultural methodologies.
Graduate Training in SDOS
When applying to the SDOS Program, students may indicate which concentration (or concentrations) they are interested in pursuing for their graduate training (Social Psychology, Decision-Making, Industrial and Organizational Psychology). Please click here for the supplemental SDOS form for the application. All incoming students in SDOS will experience a common set of core classes (Judgment and Decision Making, Social Psychology, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Research Methods, and Statistics), a common brownbag, and will have access to all faculty as mentors. After core classes are completed, students can design their own graduate training program to reflect a combination of these sub disciplines or can concentrate in Industrial/Organizational, Decision-Making, or Social, which will direct the additional classes and the comprehensive exam that is given. Students are also encouraged to link to other areas within as well as outside of the department in designing their training. Many of our faculty and students go to a number of conferences throughout the year, such as the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, the International Association for Conflict Management, Psychonomics, and the Academy of Management.
