杏吧论坛

Dr Nicolette Sullivan MAR 6.22

This course is available on the CEMS Exchange, Global MSc in Management, Global MSc in Management (CEMS MIM), Global MSc in Management (MBA Exchange), MSc in Management (1 Year Programme) and MSc in Marketing. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Our understanding of how consumers make evaluations and decisions has been greatly advanced by the many new theoretical and technological developments in the study of consumer behaviour in the last decade. This course covers the insights gained from this new field often referred to as Consumer Neuroscience or Neuroeconomics, which sits at the intersections of consumer behaviour, psychology, behavioural economics, and neuroscience. We will cover the key findings of this highly productive new field and will introduce the neuroscience and cutting-edge techniques behind these developments including eye tracking, skin conductance, and mouse tracking, and neuroscience methods like fMRI and EEG.

Topics covered include how knowledge and measurement of the visual system inform ad design, how the brain represents the preferences and values that guide decisions and how this leads to biases, how the limbic system helps to encode emotions and how its measurement can predict marketing outcomes, and functional localization of brand preferences and marketing actions and their link to learning and memory systems. The influence of neural changes across the consumer lifespan, from adolescence through to older age, on marketing and management practices will be covered. We will discuss the use of insights gained from this research to nudge human behaviour, and future directions and ethical ramifications will be examined. Finally, the brain’s ability to predict not only the individual’s future choice but also aggregate market-level behaviours will be discussed.

Students will receive practical hands-on experience with one of these advanced techniques. By the end of the course, students will also be able to sort junk science from good science, making them informed consumers of research in this cutting-edge field. This is a good option for students who enjoyed Consumer Behaviour: Behavioural Fundamentals I (MG404) and would like to extend their knowledge on that topic.

This course will have one three-hour Harvard-style session per week for the duration of Winter Term.