Prospectus

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Decision Making: Theory and Practice

Course
2015-2016

Entry requirements

Open to master’s students in Psychology with specialisation Applied Cognitive Psychology and other master’s students in Psychology.

Description

Shall I buy a travel insurance? Shall I go to the party if Mary doesn’t? Is this person guilty? And should I worry about this medical test outcome? We all face a perplexing array of judgments and decisions every day. In this course, we review the main theories in judgment and decision making, and we consider applications in both every day and professional decision problems.

Course objectives

  • Being introduced in the formal and psychological science of judgment and decision making

  • Being introduced in 3 fields of application: medical, legal and administrative decision making (in particular game theory).

Timetable

For the timetables of your lectures, work groups and exams, please select your study programme in:
Psychology timetables

Registration

Course

Students need to enroll for lectures and work group sessions.
Master’s course registration

Exchange/Study abroad

For admission requirements contact your exchange coordinator

Examination

Students are not automatically enrolled for an examination. They can register via uSis from 100 to 10 calendar days before the date. Students who are not registered will not be permitted to take the examination.
Registering for exams

Mode of instruction

Eight lectures (including guest lectures from professional decision making experts).

Assessment method

The examination consists of two parts:

  • A multiple-choice examination of 30 questions on Newell et al’s book

  • An essay examination (open questions) about papers.
    The two components are tested simultaneously. The final grade is a combination of the multiple-choice examination grade (70%) and the essay examination grade (30%). A higher grade in one component can be used to compensate for a fail in another component. A grade for a unit of assessment that is no lower than 4.5 can be compensated by a grade for the other unit of assessment.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences has instituted that instructors use a software programme for the systematic detection of plagiarism in students’ written work. In case of fraud disciplinary actions will be taken. Please see the information concerning fraud.

Reading list

  • Newell, Lagnado & Shanks (2015). Straight choices. The psychology of decision making. 2nd Edition. Hove: Psychology Press.

  • Articles related to the topics of the guest lectures.

Contact information

Dr. Fenna Poletiek
poletiek@fsw.leidenuniv.nl