Doel vak

Academic & Research Skills: You will analyze and reflect on existing
literature on
judgment and decision making and apply this knowledge to examples and
problems from business and public policy.
Bridging Theory & Practice: You will obtain a deeper understanding of
theories,
methodology (experiments and field studies) and findings on heuristics
and biases in the area of judgment and decision making, from psychology
and behavioral economics.
You will make use of theoretical knowledge
and concepts such as biases, decision processes, risk perception to
understand and analyze human decision making in practical settings. We
will focus on business and policy decisions, but also draw from other
settings.

Inhoud vak

This course provides an overview of scientific research on judgment &
decision making, where psychology and economics collide and collaborate
to understand human behavior. It provides you with the basic knowledge
of theories, concepts and methods that is necessary to understand how
decisions are made. The course is inspired by the groundbreaking,
nobel-prize winning work of Tversky and Kahneman (Nobel prize 2002),
Thaler (Nobel prize 2017) as well as other seminal work and research
programmes of other leading thinkers in the field (and society). One of
the main topics of the course will be the question of how and when
humans deviate from rational thinking. This is captured by a well-
documented array of heuristics and biases, that help us to make
reasonable and accurate decisions in some areas, but may crucially
misguide us in others. We will discuss eye-opening research that
documents several well-known biases as well as focus on mental
accounting, loss/gain framing, forecasting, visceral influences,
motivated reasoning and (dis)honesty.

Onderwijsvorm

Lectures and tutorials

Toetsvorm

written exam – individual assessment
(interim) assignment – group assessment

Vereiste voorkennis

none

Literatuur

a set of academic articles (tba)

Aanbevolen voorkennis

Well-trained in academic method and thinking (i.e., with an academic
bachelor).