Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context - RFP

About this program

Russell Sage Foundation’s core program on Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context solicits interdisciplinary research proposals that apply behavioral science to understand decision-making, attitudes, behaviors, and institutional practices in public and private settings (e.g., policing, employment, housing, politics, racial/ethnic relations, immigration) with an emphasis on social, political, and economic inequalities in the United States. The program supports experimental, observational, network, institutional, and policy‑focused studies on topics such as biases and misperceptions, institutions and social structures, incentives and choice architecture, habits and mental bandwidth, and affect and emotions. Applicants should be social scientists (from economics, psychology, political science, sociology, law, public policy, and related fields) proposing U.S.-focused research or comparative projects that illuminate U.S. social conditions; proposals centered on health/mental health outcomes, curricular education processes, tests of well‑established behavioral effects without contextual/mechanistic analysis, or studies confined to non‑U.S. data are generally ineligible.