The Marshall Behavioral Research Lab supports faculty and PhD students in every Marshall department (MOR, MKT, FBE, DSO, ACCT, BUCO, BAEP). Studies run in our lab suites, online, and in the field, and they cover how people think, feel, and decide in business settings.
Research at a Glance
- 137 online studies supported, totaling 8,131 research hours (AY 2024–25)
- 12,798 participant interactions through our Compensated Pool of 6,550+ community members (2024–25)
- 16 faculty-led projects staffed by the Student Assistant Pool, with 1,800+ hours of student research support (AY 2025–26)
Key Areas of Interest
| Area | What we study | Common methods |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer decision-making | How do emotions, cognitive biases, and social factors influence purchasing decisions? Topics include ad effectiveness, packaging design, website experience, and shelf displays. | Eye tracking, surveys, field experiments |
| Organizational psychology | What motivates employees and improves productivity and satisfaction? Topics include incentives, leadership, company culture, and diversity. | Surveys, lab experiments |
| Behavioral ethics | What causes unethical behavior in organizations, and how can it be reduced? Topics include cheating and conflicts of interest. | Lab studies testing interventions |
| Judgment and decision-making | How can training and tools improve reasoning in complex business contexts? Topics include information search, choice, and deliberation. | Lab and online experiments, eye tracking |
| Attention and emotion | What do people notice, and how do they react? Topics include attention, arousal, and emotional response that self-report can't capture. | Eye tracking, psychophysiology, facial expression analysis |
| Social interaction and communication | How do people negotiate, lead, and persuade? Topics include team dynamics, nonverbal behavior, and presentation effectiveness. | Video recording, behavioral coding |
See the equipment behind these methods on Our Facilities.
How Studies Run Here
- In the lab: individual and group sessions in our VPD suites, run by trained research assistants.
- Online: studies through Qualtrics, Prolific, MTurk, and Qualtrics Panels, with setup and quality checks from the lab.
- In the field: pop-up studies at campus and community sites to reach participants beyond the usual subject pools.
- Stacked sessions: several short studies combined into one proctored lab session through the course-credit pool.
Planning a study? Visit For Researchers to get started.
Research Spotlight
We're building a spotlight on studies conducted at MBRL. If you've run research with us and would like it featured, email the lab.
Upcoming Conferences
- Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) 2026, San Diego, CA: November 20–22, 2026
- Association for Consumer Research (ACR) 2027, Anaheim, CA: October 28–30, 2027
- Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) 2027, New Orleans, LA: November 18–20, 2027
Questions about these events? Email behaviorallab@marshall.usc.edu.