Module BUSI2211: CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY

Department: Business School (Business)

BUSI2211: CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To explore consumer interactions with the products and services of everyday life, and with the marketing of those products and services.
• To understand psychological responses to a range of marketing stimuli, how those responses vary across different situational contexts, and the implications of those variations for both consumer decision-making and marketing actions.
• To engage at a critical level with psychological, environmental and neuroscience research into consumer behaviour and neuromarketing practice.

Content

• Historical foundations of consumer psychology - the psychoanalytic, behaviourist and social-cognitivist eras
• Contemporary perspectives - behavioural economics and consumer neuroscience
• Consumer decision-making - conscious and non-conscious information processing
• The 'irrational' consumer - heuristics, biases and marketing/sales triggers
• Wants, needs and desires - new perspectives on consumer motivation and goals
• The central role of emotions in consumer responses
• Unplanned, impulsive and compulsive buying
• Personality and consumer behaviour
• Fields of application - brand optimisation, product/packaging design, advertising effectiveness, in-store/online marketing, and the psychology of entertainment
• Consumer 'misbehaviour' - retail theft, de-shopping, illicit consumption, deviant leisure, etc
• Neuromarketing research - biofeedback, EEG studies, eye/mouse-tracking, fMRI scans, etc
• Issues in consumer psychology - standards, policy implications and (neuro-)ethics

Learning Outcomes

• An understanding of the psychology of psychological, biological, situational, environmental and socio-cultural influences on behaviour;
• A critical awareness of the decision-making processes that individuals undertake and the models which seek to interpret this behaviour;
• An appreciation of why and how this understanding of psychology is important for marketing.

• Ability to observe, interpret and demonstrate marketing psychology in action.
• Ability to critically evaluate their own behaviour as consumers.
• Ability to develop and evaluate marketing strategies in the light of consumer psychology theory and neuromarketing research.

• Creativity and problem-solving (e.g. by thinking laterally and innovatively)
• Critical thinking
• Active and reflective learning
• Presenting in both the written and oral/visual form
• Group work/teamwork and leadership skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Teaching is via a combination of lectures and workshops. The lectures provide theoretical input into the module, reinforced with critical reading, while the workshops expose students to some of the practical tools/frameworks used in marketing to help apply theoretical ideas to real-world applications.
• Formative assessment is embedded into the workshops. Through a series of linked activities and preparatory work, students complete a series of individual and group exercises designed to prepare them for both elements of the summative assessment. Students present outputs of these activities back to class, receiving continuous feedback from lecturer and peers.
• Summative assessment is in two parts, both eqaully weighted. The first component is an essay, taking the form of a critical Term Paper reviewing key conceptual elements of the module syllabus. The second component then builds on this, involving a practical project and subsequent report that requires students to apply theory to a real-world marketing issue.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Individual and group experiential learning activities integrated into workshops to prepare students for summative assessments - continuous lecturer feedback and peer review.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University