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 »  Home  »  Science  »  Drazen Prelec distinguished Croatian expert for Neuroeconomics and professor at MIT, USA
 »  Home  »  People  »  Drazen Prelec distinguished Croatian expert for Neuroeconomics and professor at MIT, USA
 »  Home  »  Education  »  Drazen Prelec distinguished Croatian expert for Neuroeconomics and professor at MIT, USA
Drazen Prelec distinguished Croatian expert for Neuroeconomics and professor at MIT, USA
By Darko Žubrinić | Published  08/2/2014 | Science , People , Education | Unrated
Holding three appointments at MIT


Dražen Prelec, professor at MIT with three appointments:
at the Department of Economics, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and at the Sloan School of Management.

Dražen Prelec: THE BRAIN AS DECISION MAKER
Neuroeconomics provides a very interesting window into the workings of the brain in yet another arena, decision making -- where psychology and neuroscience intersect. Inherent in neuroeconomics are decisions that involve such factors as risk, effort involved, time, self-control, among others. Prof. Prelec investigates both the development of normative decision theory and the exploration of the empirical failures of that theory. In this talk, he will discuss a variety of factors that come into play in the normal course of our everyday activities that are both causal and non-causal.

 
Professor Drazen Prelec, born in Croatia's capital Zagreb in 1955, completed his studies of Applied Mathematics at Harvard University in 1978, and earned Ph.D in 1983 in Experimental Psychology. He is one of the leading experts in Neuroeconomics, where pscychology and neuroscience intersect. Professor Prelec investigates both the development of normative decision theory and the exploration of the empirical failures of that theory. He is employed at MIT, holding three appointments: at the Department of Economics, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and at the Sloan School of Management.


 
Dražen Prelec's research

Drazen Prelec’s research deals with the psychology and neuroscience of decision making (behavioral economics and neuroeconomics; risky choice, time discounting, self-control, consumer behavior). He works both on the development of normative decision theory and the exploration of the empirical failures of that theory, using behavioral and fMRI methods.



A current project on “self-signaling” tries to understand the strange power of non-causal motivation — when individuals favor actions that are diagnostic of good outcomes, even though these actions have little or no causal force.  Diagnostic motivation is real, and is probably essential for human self-control. Its cognitive and neural mechanisms are not well understood however.

A second “Bayesian truth serum” project deals with scoring systems for evaluating individual and collective judgment in knowledge domains where no external truth criterion is available. Examples would be long-range forecasts, political or historical inferences, and artistic or legal interpretations. He is developing scoring systems that reward honest judgments, and that can identify truth even when majority opinion is wrong.

Prelec has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1991, and presently holds appointments in the Sloan School, the Economics Department, and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He received his Ph. D in experimental psychology and AB in applied mathematics from Harvard University. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, and has received a number of distinguished research awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Source http://bcs.mit.edu/people/prelec.html


 
Professor Držane Prelec

Education

Harvard University, Ph.D 1983 in Experimental Psychology
Harvard College, AB 1978 in Applied Mathematics

Principal positions

Professor, Department of Economics, MIT, secondary appointment: 2007—
Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, secondary appointment: 2007—
Digital Equipment Corporation LFM Professor of Management, Sloan School: 2002 —
Professor of Management Science, Sloan School: 1998-2002
Associate Professor of Management Science, Sloan School: 1991-1998
Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics, Harvard Business School: 1985-1991



Honors, awards, visiting positions

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 2005-2006
Member (Leon Levy Designated Membership), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton,
2005-2006
Department of Mathematics, Zagreb University, 2004-2005
Member, Russell Sage Foundation Behavioral Economics Roundtable, 2004-present
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1997-1998
Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1988-1989
50K Creative Research Award, MIT, 1996
Economics Department, MIT, Fall 1990
Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows, 1982-1985

Grants

NIH “Neuroimaging the impact of aging on economic decisions,” 2007-2009, co-PI.
NSF “Truth and truthfulness: Experimental tests of the Bayesian truth serum,” 2005-
2008, PI.
NSF “Emotion and cognitive resources in time discounting,” 2000-2002,
NSF “Intraindividual variability in time preference,” 1995-1997, co-PI.

Source http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/dprelec

Many thanks to Jakša Cvitanić, professor of Mathematical Economics at Caltech,
for his information about his colleague Dražen Prelec.

Formated for CROWN by Darko Žubrinić
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