Peter Sokol-Hessner, Third-year PhD student, Department of Psychology

As a third-year PhD student in Elizabeth Phelps' lab at the Psychology Department at NYU, I arrive at the study of decision making from the point of view of emotion. In Liz's lab, we study the interactive role emotions play in processes such as memory, perception, social interaction, and decision making. I fall within that last category, in using methods and models from psychology, neuroscience, and economics to identify these interactions behaviorally, physiologically, and neurally.

I have recently been focusing on the phenomenon of loss aversion as it can relate to emotion regulation techniques. This work has combined the idea that emotions may play a role in loss aversion, with the idea that we can control our emotions using cognitive strategies. Made possible by combining models from economics (quantitative analysis of individuals' choices), psychological strategic manipulations (cognitive regulation of emotion, or reappraisal), and neuroscientific measurements (skin conductance and fMRI), we hope to both identify possible correlates of loss aversion, and its control or regulation.

I chose NYU for my graduate work because I had a good fit with my advisor, the department had excellent resources (including easy access to an fMRI with a full time staff, and a physicist on the department faculty), and great opportunities for collaboration - both with other professors and labs at NYU in the Center for Neural Science and other departments, but also with faculty from other universities in the New York City area and the numerous visiting faculty at all the aforementioned institutions. I felt that New York University would be a genuine center for collaborative science in decision making and neuroeconomics.

I have found my hopes born out in the past few years. The quality of the science done at NYU is very high and the chances to work with other graduate students and professors are numerous. I am challenged from a variety of perspectives, strengthening my research and my own abilities. As I develop my dissertation here, I will draw on the diverse set of departments, faculty, and other students, and will unquestionably benefit from it. I can think of no better place to be than NYU, and have had a very positive experience so far in my own lab, and in interacting with others around neuroeconomics.