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Psychology: Economic and Consumer Psychology

Description

We are constantly making choices and decisions. We choose a master’s specialisation, select a health care insurance, and decide to skip dessert for a healthier lifestyle. Some of our choices require intentional decisions, whether to buy or rent a house, to save or spend our money after a day’s work, who to date (and who not to date). Other choices and decisions may be more habitual, such as switching on the news at eight or accessing Google to look up some information. Our days are filled with countless decisions and the consequences of these decisions, from having tea or coffee in the morning to choosing a movie to watch in the evening. And if this is not already hard enough by itself, companies and organisations try to influence our choices and decisions, through marketing and advertising. These persuasion attempts range from how to tempt us to buy their (new and improved) product to how to make us save energy or donate money to charity. But how do we decide? How rational are our choices? Are our emotions useful in making decisions or not? How do we sell our own products and ideas to others? As economic behaviours overlap to a large extent with social behaviours, the master’s specialisation in Economic and Consumer Psychology has a lot to offer in answering these questions.

Objectives

In the master’s specialisation in Economic and Consumer Psychology, students will study the psychological mechanisms that underlie many of our choices and decisions concerning consumption and other economic behaviours. It aims at providing students with high-level training (i.e., comprehensive knowledge and excellent skills) in economic and consumer psychology, which will enable them to work independently at a professional level in a relevant field. Economic and Consumer Psychology has a core curriculum with a focus on the integration of psychological and economic theories and practice.

Curriculum

The curriculum of 60 EC offers a variety of courses and a supervised master thesis. The specialisation consists of:

  • 4 mandatory courses (20 EC)

  • thesis (20 EC)

  • internship (10 EC)

  • 2 elective course (10 EC)

Registration

At the very start of your study programme all master’s students enrol for all courses at the Master’s introduction and course enrolment day. At this day the attendance of first year master’s students in Psychology is required if they start with a master’s programme.
Master’s course registration

First year

Vak EC Semester 1 Semester 2

Compulsory coursework

Emotions and (Ir)rationality in Economic Behaviour 5
The Psychology of Media and Communication 5
The Psychology of Selling and Advertising 5
Applied Data Analysis 5
Master Thesis in MSc. Psychology 20

Choose one of the following options as internship

Internal Practical Internship (IPI) 10
Internship Psychology 10

Recommended electives

Motivation, Power and Leadership 5
Trainers Course Communication Skills 10
Environmental Psychology 5
The Psychology of Economic Behaviour 5
Decision Making in Practice (DMP) 5

More info

Additional information

Contact

Mentor

Your thesis supervisor is your mentor.

Internship and thesis coordinator

Dr. Marijke van Putten mastersop@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

General coordinator

Dr. W. van Dijk dijkwvan@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

Student representative

Find your student representative in the overview of programme committee members: Student representative