Description: Presents research from cognitive and social psychology, decision theory, and behavioral economics to help us understand consumers- why they buy (or not) and the rules they use to evaluate products and choose between them. Topics include: "framing"; heuristics and biases of judgment and choice; the challenge of characterizing labile preferences; attitudes and attitude change; psychological issues in pricing; and social marketing. Emphasizes how experimental results (what we conclude about consumers from studies) and real world outcomes (what consumers actually do) are surprisingly sensitive to subtle procedural or contextual details. Half semester course.
Course #: 15.847
Professor(s) who recently taught this course:
Shane Frederick