Dr Frederic Basso

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Management (Organisational Behaviour), MSc in Behavioural Science, MSc in Organisational and Social Psychology, MSc in Psychology of Economic Life, MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology and MSc in Social and Public Communication. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

The idea of a social psychology of economic life is not obvious. From the point of view of mainstream economics, economic life – usually understood as the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services – is under the scope of economics. As a mathematical science, economics is, to some extent, a rejection of social and psychological dimensions in the analysis of economic life. As the “queen of social sciences”, mainstream economics was even considered by some authors as the framework (the so-called “economic imperialism”) for studying social and psychological processes out of the economic life. Yet, some of the most important advances over the last five decades in the understanding of human economic behaviour (and its link to some of the most pressing societal issues nowadays) are derived from concepts and methods of psychology and other social sciences. The course presents how social psychology (broadly interpreted to include micro-sociology, cultural anthropology and social neuroscience) is the key to understanding real-world economic life by taking into account cognitive, affective and social processes, and also to contributing to better solutions to societal problems.

Main concepts: cognitive dissonance, analytic/experiential systems in decision-making, metaphors and decision-making, narratives and decision-making, self/extended self in consumption, dramaturgy/staging, social roles, face-to-face interactions, emotional labour/dissonance, gift economy, sharing economy, social group (inclusion/exclusion), stigma, social norms, disenchantment of the economic world, post-modern hyper-realities, experience economy, resistance to persuasion (inertia, scepticism, reactance), resistance to consumption (avoidance, minimisation, boycott/active rebellion).

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the WT.

Students will be expected to produce 1 piece of coursework in the WT.

Reading lists will be provided for each topic, the following references are for general use (though not mandatory readings);

• Akerlof, G. A., & Shiller, R. J. (2010). Animal spirits: How human psychology drives the economy, and why it matters for global capitalism. Princeton University Press.
• Nelson, J. A. (2018). Economics for humans. University of Chicago Press.
• Stafford, C. (2020). Economic life in the real world: logic, emotion and ethics. Cambridge University Press.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the period between WT and ST.