Assistant Professor Elliot Berkman will be presenting a Science Pub tomorrow night, hosted by OMSI. Come join us!

What: Elliot Berkman, “Consciousness, Awareness, and Self-Control: A Psychological Perspective on Free Will”

Where: Cozmic Pizza, 199 W 8th Street, Eugene, NE Corner of 8th and Charnelton

When: Thursday, June 9th, 6:30pm

A majority of people believe that free will exists, and nearly everyone wishes that it does. Though the jury is still out on that question, research from the field of social psychology has come up with some surprising examples of people acting as though they had no free will. In light of this evidence, the scientific conversation is more about when people exercise free will, as opposed to whether or not they have it at all.

In this talk, social psychologist Elliot Berkman will discuss free will from the perspective of modern psychology and neuroscience theories, and tell the audience about the studies that provided insights into the unexpected nature of human behavior.

Elliot Berkman, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon and Associate Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience. He studies the motivational and cognitive factors that contribute to success and failure at health goals such as cigarette smoking cessation and dieting. His research leverages the distinct strengths of several research methods, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, longitudinal survey methods, and laboratory experiments. This work adopts a translational neuroscience approach by using knowledge of brain function, structure, and connectivity to design and improve interventions on health behavior and wellbeing. He teaches social psychology, social neuroscience, and statistics. He directs the Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, writes the blog “The Motivated Brain” at Psychology Today, and tweets under @Psychologician. For more information or to sign up for our mailing list, email: sciencepub@omsi.edu.