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Courses for Fall 2025

Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
PPE 3001-401 Strategic Reasoning David Dillenberger COLL 200 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course is about strategically interdependent decisions. In such situations, the outcome of your actions depends also on the actions of others. When making your choice, you have to think what the others will choose, who in turn are thinking what you will be choosing, and so on. Game Theory offers several concepts and insights for understanding such situations, and for making better strategic choices. This course will introduce and develop some basic ideas from game theory, using illustrations, applications, and cases drawn from business, economics, politics, sports, and even fiction and movies. Some interactive games will be played in class. There will be little formal theory, and the only pre-requisites are some high-school algebra and having taken Econ 1. However, general numeracy (facility interpreting and doing numerical graphs, tables, and arithmetic calculations) is very important. This course will also be accepted by the Economics department as an Econ course, to be counted toward the minor in Economics (or as an Econ elective). ECON0120401
PPE 3003-401 Behavioral Economics and Psychology Pei-Hsun Hsieh COLL 200 TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Our understanding of markets, governments, and societies rests on our understanding of choice behavior, and the psychological forces that govern it. This course will introduce you to the study of choice, and will examine in detail what we know about how people make choices, and how we can influence these choices. It will utilize insights from psychology and economics, and will apply these insights to domains including risky decision making, intertemporal decision making, and social decision making. PSYC2750401
PPE 3950-001 Center for Social Norms & Behavioral Dynamics Research Seminar Diego Aycinena Abascal This “research seminar” takes its model from the Penn Independent Study and pairs interested students with researchers at the Center for Social Norms & Behavioral Dynamics sited here at Penn. SNOBED fellows work with organizations across the world to identify, measure, and influence norms and behaviors at scale. PPE majors will be paired with SNOBED-affiliated researchers and faculty and work as junior research fellows, learning fundamental approaches and the basics of research methods in the day-to-day environment of an active research center with mentors working on cutting edge research. Examples of current projects include: research on poverty in the US funded by the Templeton Foundation; on toilet use and sanitation in India funded by the Gates Foundation; and on corruption in Nigeria and Colombia funded by Chatham House and USAID.
PPE 4600-301 Advanced Seminar in Political Science: Campaigns, Elections, and Participation Amy Funck COHN 204 W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM An advanced seminar in PPE offered by faculty in Political Science. As an advanced interdisciplinary seminar, this course is open to juniors and seniors with a declared PPE major (open to others by departmental permission). For a detailed course description visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/advanced-interdisciplinary-courses
PPE 4800-301 Advanced Seminar in Psychology: Moral Psychology Paul Deutchman VANP 124 W 10:00 AM-12:59 PM An advanced seminar in PPE offered by faculty in Psychology. As an advanced interdisciplinary seminar, this course is open to juniors and seniors with a declared PPE major (open to others by departmental permission). For a detailed course description visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/advanced-interdisciplinary-courses
PPE 4802-401 Advanced Seminar in Psychology: Obedience Edward Royzman PSYL A30 R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Though almost half a century old, Milgram’s 1961-1962 studies of “destructive obedience” continue to puzzle, fascinate, and alarm. The main reason for their continued grip on the field’s attention (other than the boldness of the idea and elegance of execution) may be simply that they leave us with a portrait of human character that is radically different from the one that we personally wish to endorse or that the wider culture teaches us to accept. In this seminar, we will take an in-depth look at these famous studies (along with the more recent replications) and explore their various psychological, political and philosophical ramifications. PSYC3780401
PPE 4803-401 Advanced Seminar in Psychology: Modeling Choice Behavior Sudeep Bhatia MCNB 286-7 R 12:00 PM-2:59 PM How do people decide and how can we study decision processes using formal mathematical and computational models? This course will address this question. It will examine popular quantitative modeling techniques in psychology, economics, cognitive science, and neuroscience, and will apply these techniques to study choice behavior. Students will learn how to test the predictions of choice models, fit the models on behavioral data, and quantitatively examine the goodness-of-fit. They will also get practice formulating their own models for describing human behavior. This class will have a major programming component, however no prior programming experience is required. PSYC3803401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=PPE4803401
PPE 4900-301 Advanced Seminar in PPE: Cooperative Altruism (SNF Paideia Course) Jaron Cordero FAGN 214 MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM An advanced seminar in PPE offered by Paideia-affiliated faculty. As an advanced interdisciplinary seminar, this course is open to juniors and seniors with a declared PPE major (open to others by departmental permission). For a detailed course description visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/advanced-interdisciplinary-courses
PPE 4900-302 Advanced Seminar in PPE: Racial and Ethnic Politics (SNF Paideia Course) Jair Alexander Moreira COHN 203 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM An advanced seminar in PPE offered by Paideia-affiliated faculty. As an advanced interdisciplinary seminar, this course is open to juniors and seniors with a declared PPE major (open to others by departmental permission). For a detailed course description visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/advanced-interdisciplinary-courses