Dr Rongjun Yu: Understanding Irrational Decision-making Using Neuroscience Methods

How are economic and social decisions made in different demographic groups? This is what the research of Dr Rongjun Yu, a recent addition to the HKBU Department of Management, seeks to unearth.

Dr Yu joins HKBU following attaining his PhD in neuroscience and social psychology from the University of Cambridge, postdoc positions at Caltech and Harvard Medical School, and most recently as an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Dr Yu’s upcoming research deals mainly with the concept of irrational decision-making. For example, why people make certain decisions which do themselves harm: gambling, risk-taking, retaliation and so forth.

Dr Yu seeks to understand these processes in individuals with psychological disorders. Using a neuroeconomics approach, which combines brain imaging methods with behavioural economics paradigms, Dr Yu studies occurrences in the human brain during decision-making processes and what happens if these decision-making mechanisms go awry, particularly in individuals with mental disorders.

HKBU is extremely excited to have Dr Yu at the University to aid in our growing interdisciplinary expertise.