Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Groundbreaking research from UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology is shifting the understanding of human decision-making processes by highlighting the importance of goal-oriented rewards. Conducted by Berkeley Psychology Professor Anne Collins and Berkeley Psychology doctoral student Gaia Molinaro, the study suggests that the value people attribute to outcomes is subjective, and heavily influenced by their personal goals and the context of the decision.

"Value isn't just determined by an objective reward or outcome,” Collins said. “Our...

UC Berkeley Professor Dave Wahl and Quaternary Paleoecology Lab researcher Marie Champagne co-authored a new paper in Science titled "Independent age estimates resolve the controversy of ancient human footprints at White Sands," which rewrites the history of humans in the...

A UC Berkeley-led study revealed that disparities in the share of Black and Latino students admitted to America’s elite colleges and universities have endured and even widened over the last 40 years.

The study, "Shifting Tides: The Evolution of Racial Inequality in Higher Education from the 1980s through the 2010s," was published this month in Sage Journals and conducted by a team of researchers from UC...

UC Berkeley Sociology graduate student Ángel Mendiola Ross’ curiosity about using big data and computational methods to try and tackle perpetuating inequities in the criminal justice system led them to apply to the Berkeley Social Sciences’ multidisciplinary Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System (CRELS) Program. The program aims to combine social science and computational science to examine systemic inequities in...