UC Berkeley’s flagship institute for social science research

Our purpose is captured in our name: we provide an organizational framework—a “matrix”—that supports cross-disciplinary research pursued by social scientists across the University of California, Berkeley campus and beyond.

Book Talk

Recap

Published May 14, 2026

Benjamin Recht: “The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us”

Recorded on May 5, 2026, this video features a talk by Benjamin Recht, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, focused on his book, The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us. Professor Recht was joined in conversation by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology and Director of […]

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Research Highlights

Article

Published August 1, 2014

Lie Detector

Recent research by a psychologist at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business suggests that our unconscious mind can detect lies.

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Science

Article

Published July 29, 2014

Mind Readers At Work

A team of researchers led by UC Berkeley neuroscientists are getting closer to decoding imagined speech from the brain.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published July 29, 2014

Arroyos and Socionatures

A UC Berkeley geographer explores a mystery to better understand the relationship between human-caused and natural phenomena.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published July 29, 2014

When Companies Manage Cities

UC Berkeley political scientist Alison Post’s new book explores the consequences of privatizing urban infrastructure.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published July 29, 2014

Social Networks from History

A new tool developed by a team at UC Berkeley can help build “prosopographies,” social networks based on names, affiliations, and other historical data.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published July 22, 2014

Do You Trust the Police?

A team of UC Berkeley researchers are helping devise new methods for measuring levels of trust between local communities and the police.

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