The Psychology of Choice - Experimental Theory and Methods

Course content

The teaching in this course may be changed to be taught either fully or partly online due to COVID-19. For further information, see the course room on Absalon. The time, place and type of assessment used for the exam may also be changed due to COVID-19, and any further information will be announced under the panel “Exam”.

Explanations and predictions of people’s choices, in everyday life as well as in the social sciences, are often founded on the assumption that humans are rational. The definition of rationality has been much debated, but there is general consensus that rational choices should satisfy some elementary requirements of consistency and coherence in the assessment of values.

 

In this course we will study decision problems in which people systematically violate these requirements of consistency and coherency, and we trace the violations to the psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of options. The course will provide an overview of the field by focusing on the most central topics and experiments.

Some of the topics we will focus on during the course are:

  • Attention
  • Reference dependence, framing and loss aversion
  • Anchoring and heuristics
  • Overconfidence
  • Choice architecture
Education

MSc programme in Economics – elective course

 

Learning outcome

After completing the course the student is expected to be able to:

 

Knowledge:

  • Identify the interdisciplinary field of `the psychology of choice´.
  • Investigate choice behavior by means of empirically testable hypotheses and experiments.
  • Discuss how psychologists and economists together have shaped our understanding of the microfoundations of human choice behavior.
  • Define how seminar works in the topics covered during the course.

 

Skills:

  • Critically assess and relate the diverse ideas, concepts and theories developed in the topics covered during the course.
  • Evaluate experiments used in the topics covered during the course.
  • Debate and present often complex topics in a precise, simple and clear way.

     

Competencies:

  • Apply the empirical and theoretical knowledge and the skills obtained in this course to understand real-world behavioral phenomena that lie beyond the scope of this course.
  • Initiate discussions and solve decision problems that lie outside the scope of the course.

 

In the first week of the course there will be an opening lecture during which also all organizational issues are discussed. In all the following weeks there will be lectures on different topics in the intersection of psychology and economics.

A list of required readings will be given to the students in the beginning of the course

 

Sound knowledge of statistical methods and tests from e.g. Probability theory and statistics (Sandsynlighedsteori), Econometrics I at the Bachelor of Economics, and Statistik 1 and 2 from the Bachelor of Psychologi, or equivalent.

Schedule:
2 hours lectures 1 to 2 times a week from week 36 to 50 (except week 42).

Schema:
The overall schema for the Master can be seen at KUnet:
MSc in Economics => "Courses and teaching" => "Planning and overview" => "Your timetable"

Timetable and venue:
To see the time and location of lectures please press the link under "Timetable"/​"Se skema" at the right side of this page. E means Autumn.

You can find the similar information partly in English at
https:/​/​skema.ku.dk/​ku2021/​uk/​module.htm
-Select Department: “2200-Økonomisk Institut” (and wait for respond)
-Select Module:: “2200-E20; [Name of course]”
-Select Report Type: “List – Weekdays”
-Select Period: “Efterår/Autumn – Weeks 31-5”
Press: “ View Timetable

Oral
Collective
ECTS
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written examination, 3 hours under invigilation
The exam assignment is in English and must be answered in English.
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Aid
Without aids
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
for the written exam. The exam may be choosed for external censorship by random check.
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Criteria for exam assessment

Students are assessed on the extent to which they master the learning outcome for the course.

 

To receive the top grade, the student must with no or only a few minor weaknesses be able to demonstrate an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material and can make use of the knowledge, skills and competencies listed in the learning outcomes.

Single subject courses (day)

  • Category
  • Hours
  • Lectures
  • 42
  • Preparation
  • 161
  • Exam
  • 3
  • English
  • 206