Entry requirements
Students must have completed the first-year Psychology course in Social and Organisational Psychology or a comparable course.
Description
Advertising is a powerful force, seducing consumers into buying wanted and sometimes unwanted products and services, donating to charity or changing our health-related lifestyles for better or worse. The impact of advertising is often subtle and implicit, but sometimes blatant and impossible to overlook. This course discusses key topics from the fields of social and consumer psychology and addresses questions such as: what is the impact of advertising on consumer behaviour? Which psychological processes make advertising effective? How do consumers make sense of advertising messages? And how do new online and digital technologies affect consumer behavior?
The course provides an overview of psychological findings on the impact of advertising and discusses this research in the context of recent developments in the field of psychology. The course provides greater insight into how consumer decisions are made and is therefore relevant for students who are interested in the interplay between marketing, psychology, and consumer behaviour.
Course objectives
Upon completion of the course, the student:
will be able to recognize and reproduce knowledge about the most important theories, paradigms, and empirical findings in the field of the psychology of advertising; and
will be able to apply this knowledge of the psychology of advertising to understand and analyze consumer behaviour.
Timetable
For the timetable of this course please refer to MyTimetable
Registration
NOTE As of the academic year 2021-2022, you must register for all courses in uSis. You do this twice a year: once for the courses you want to take in semester 1 and once for the courses you want to take in semester 2.
Registration for courses in the first semester is possible from July. Registration for courses in the first semester is possible from December.
The exact date on which the registration starts will be published on the website of the Student Service Center (SSC). First year Bachelor students as well as premaster students will be registered by the Student Service Center; they do not need to register themselves.
The registration period for all courses closes five calendar days before the start of the course.
Also read the complete registration procedure
Elective
Elective students have to enroll for each course separately. For admission requirements contact your study advisor.
Mode of instruction
8 2-hour lectures
Assessment method
Final exam with 40 multiple-choice and 5 essay questions. The multiple-choice questions count for 70% of the grade and the essay questions count for 30% of the grade. The reading materials and the information presented in lectures will be part of the exam material.
The Institute of Psychology uses fixed rules for grade calculation and compulsory attendance. It also follows the policy of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences to systematically check student papers for plagiarism with the help of software. Disciplinary measures will be taken when fraud is detected. Students are expected to be familiar with and understand the implications of these three policies.
Reading list
- Fennis, B. M., & Stroebe, W. (2021). The Psychology of Advertising (3rd edition). Psychology Press.
Contact information
Dr. G. J. Lelieveld lelieveldgj@fsw.leidenuniv.nl