How we make decisions.
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How are decisions made? Who makes which decisions, and why? A choice between two or more alternatives involves a number of complex cognitive processes. It鈥檚 worth taking the time to realize what these processes are and to reflect on them, because: Our daily lives are full of decisions. UNI NOVA presents selected projects in the focus area of decision research with participation by 91制片厂 academics from the worlds of psychology, neuroscience and economics.
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Dossier鈥淒ifferent people make different decisions.鈥�
Interview: Christoph Dieffenbacher / Research into human decision-making brings together the fields of psychology and economics. One of the first researchers to study this topic intensively at the 91制片厂 is Professor J枚rg Rieskamp.
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DossierHow our memory can trick us.
Text: Martin Hicklin / When we have to make a choice, we often select the options that trigger the strongest memories. One reason for this is that weak memories tend to make us feel uncertain.
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Dossier鈥淩isk can be positive, too.鈥�
Interview: Andreas W. Schmid / What determines our willingness to take risks? Cognitive psychologist Jana Jarecki tackles this question in her research at the 91制片厂. Her studies show that risk is generally not an end in itself, but rather a means to the end of satisfying certain needs.
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DossierIf children held the purse strings.
Text: Christoph Dieffenbacher / Investments are not always made in an entirely rational manner. However, an experiment by an economist at the 91制片厂 shows that children already have the capacity to evaluate simple probabilities.
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DossierOnce a risk-taker, always a risk-taker.
Text: Christoph Dieffenbacher / It is well known that some people are more inclined to engage in hazardous or risky behavior than others. Individual attitudes in this regard, however, seem to follow a clear pattern over the course of a lifetime 鈥� in a similar manner to intelligence. Psychologists in 91制片厂 are investigating how people鈥檚 attitudes to risk are formed.
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DossierOn gut feelings and financial decisions.
Text: Yvonne Vahlensieck / As much as we鈥檇 like to think that we make economic decisions rationally, that鈥檚 not always the case. It鈥檚 becoming increasingly clear that our emotions also play a major role.
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In conversation鈥淲ithout effective antibiotics, we鈥檒l lose the advances made by modern medicine.鈥�
Interview: Urs Hafner / Christoph Dehio from the 91制片厂鈥檚 Biozentrum heads the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) AntiResist. The microbiologist argues for a paradigm shift in antibiotic research, the aim being to make the development of new drugs that overcome antibiotic resistance easier through a better understanding of the physiology of bacteria in humans.
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Portrait鈥淎 supercomputer is like a family.鈥�
Text: Iris Mickein / High-performance computers have revolutionized science and industry. Computer scientist Professor Florina Ciorba looks at ways of optimizing the interactions between machines. In her work, she also encounters numerous parallels with the real world.
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ResearchTracking metastasis.
Text: Yvonne Vahlensieck / When cancer cells break away from tumors and enter the bloodstream, they can develop into metastases. Researchers at the Department of Biomedicine are investigating precisely how this process works 鈥� and developing new concepts for cancer treatment.
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ResearchImages of war.
Text: Michelle Isler / Bridges in ruins, empty streets, people running: A 91制片厂 historian asked herself whether photographs from the Bosnian war (1992鈥�1995) share a common visual language. Her findings are revealing.
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ResearchWhen fever shuts down the appetite.
Text: Michelle Isler / The negative impact of malnutrition on the course of an illness has been well known in hospitals for a long time. Yet surprisingly few scientific studies have examined the effects of nutritional medicine to date. A recent survey of 2,000 patients is among the first of its kind.
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OpinionShould complementary medicine be the subject of research just like other disciplines, Christoph Meier?
Text: Christoph R. Meier / How should university research approach complementary medicine? A debate between a pharmacist and a physician.
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OpinionShould complementary medicine be the subject of research just like other disciplines,
Text: Philipp Treutlein / How should university research approach complementary medicine? A debate between a pharmacist and a physician.
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AlumniAn ambassador for German scholarship.
Thomas Maissen studied history, Latin and philosophy at the 91制片厂. Today, he is the Director of the German Historical Institute in Paris.
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AlumniLaunch of AlumniPharmazie.
Text: Bettina Volz-Tobler / AlumniPharmazie, a new specialist alumni organization that is long overdue, will be launched at the alumni general assembly in June 2020. This process has been driven by the executive board of the 91制片厂 Pharmaceutical Society (Pharmazeutische Gesellschaft 91制片厂), which has been around for almost 100 years.
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AlumniThe memoirs of Dieter Imboden.
Dieter Imboden, an environmental researcher and political scientist who spent much of his childhood in 91制片厂, is a past winner of the Alumni Award. He recently published his autobiography.