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Ann Mari May and Colleagues Receive “Big Ideas” Planning Grant

Policy-makers are increasingly interested in findings ways of “nudging” individuals to make better decisions regarding their health, personal finance, education and labor market choices. However, in these important life domains, differences in decision-making by men and women, leading to significant variations in numerous measures of well-being often go unseen.
 
To better understand these differences, Dr. Ann Mari May, professor of economics from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business Administration, and other faculty from the University of Nebraska system have received funding through the “Big Ideas” Initiative from the Office of Research and Economic Development to develop research on decision making using social neuroscience in important life domains.

fMRI
“Economists typically assume people make choices based upon cognitive and rational weighing of the facts. What neuroscience suggests is it’s the interaction between the cognitive processes and our emotion that work together to make decisions,” May said. “Our approach will move beyond describing differences in outcomes, to investigating why such differences in decision-making exist through the use of new techniques in social neuroscience such as functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) and hormonal assays.” 

The collaborators assembled in the grant represent the disciplines of economics, management, agricultural economics, psychology, public health and neuroscience, drawing upon the expertise of units from the University of Nebraska, which includes College of Business Administration, Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior, Institute for Agricultural and Natural Resources, Arts and Sciences and the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
 
Other faculty members at CBA involved in the grant include Dr. Mary McGarvey, associate professor of economics and Dr. Peter Harms, assistant professor of management.
 
May hopes the results of this research will better guide policy making in a variety of important areas.
 
http://research.unl.edu/researchnews/february2015/big-ideas-grants/
Published: March 13, 2015