APSK05120U Elective course - The Psychology of Choice - Experimental Theory and Methods

Volume 2013/2014
Education
Master Program in Psychology 2010-Curriculum
Content

The Psychology of Choice - Experimental Theory and Methods v/ Carsten S. Nielsen and Alexander Sebald

Description and content
: All through our life, we have to make decisions. Whether it is attending to the signal at a crossing, finding a spouse, or investing hard earned money, the common denominator is the choice between options of different values.  How we perceive the value of an option depends on how the option is processed by our cognitive system. To understand human decision-making it is therefore crucial to understand human cognition. 

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 limitations, anchoring, loss aversion, the importance of context and reference points, and mutual mental states. The impact and relevance of seminal research in each of these topics will be made clear through hands-on experimental experience.

Methodological level: Students should learn to critically assess and relate the diverse ideas, concepts and theories developed in psychology and economics to explain humans’ choice behavior. Furthermore, they should learn (i) how experiments are used in social sciences to investigate human choices and (ii) how to analyze and present their results in a simple / clear, but not superficial way. 

Teaching: The course has three elements. (i) Demonstration experiments: Students participate in demonstration experiments based on the above-mentioned topics. (ii) One assignment: During the course each student has to analyze with a small group of other students the data from one demonstration experiment, reflect on possible explanations for the observed behavior and present the results to the rest of the class. (iii) Lectures: We discuss seminal research, and explain the relevance of the demonstration experiments and how the data compares to findings in the literature.

Learning Outcome

The goal of elective courses is an expansion or an additional perspective upon the psychological field. This is achieved through theoretical or empirical engagement in themes within or related to the psychological science. Elective courses can be taken in the Department of Psychology or in other departments.

Content level: This course aims at introducing students to the interdisciplinary field of `the psychology of choice´, be it dependent (strategic) or independent of others’ choices (non-strategic). This interdisciplinary field has received wide recognition in recent years, for example by the award of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2002 to the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and the economist Vernon Smith. During the course students will learn how to investigate complex human behavior by means of empirically testable hypotheses and experiments. Students should understand how psychologists and economists attempt to understand the microfoundations of human choice behavior. Furthermore, it should provide an in-depth overview of the most important seminal works in the aforementioned topics covered during the course.

B.Sc. in Economics or Psychology. Participation in the demonstration experiments as well as the assignments is required for admission to the final exam.
Sound knowledge of statistical methods and tests (Econometrics A and B, Statistik I and II, or equivalent).
Spring 2014
The Psychology of Choice: Monday and Friday 8-10, week 6-12 v/ Carsten S. Nielsen and Alexander Sebald
Holdundervisning 7 uger, med start uge 6 – Elektronisk tilmelding via Selvbetjeningen på KUnet fra 15. november til 1. december
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Total
  • 28
Credit
5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Course participation
Written assignment, 2 hours
The exam is a two-hour closed-book pass/no-pass exam for the psychology students. The assessment language is English.
Aid
Without aids
Marking scale
passed/not passed
Censorship form
No external censorship
Exam period
28th March 2014
Re-exam
18th August 2014
Criteria for exam assesment