https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/P_MCBSUSTAfter finishing this course, you will be able to: (1) Describe the most important theoretical models and findings within the field of consumer psychology; (2) Describe the impact of consumer behavior on the environment and the role of psychology in understanding issues related to sustainability; (3) Summarize scientific research on consumer behavior and sustainability for a lay (i.e., non-scientific) audience; (4) Develop an intervention (e.g., a nudge) that modifies consumer behavior and integrates theories from the field of consumer psychology and the challenges current societies face. All these goals will be obtained through studying literature, quizzes, discussions, resolving cases, preparing a group presentation and preparing a nudge or boosting.Do you want to know why humans make bad decisions? Do you want to become competent in predicting human consumer behavior and learn how to help people improve their decisions? This course will guide you in building an understanding of various biases and the mechanism of economic decision-making in the context of sustainability. Moreover, you will have the opportunity to acquire practical skills in resolving real-life problems in organizational behavior, money spending, and public policy. In this course, we will start by gaining insights into the traditional economic rational choice models that are used to explain how consumers should make decisions. Following this, we will take a more descriptive approach to explain how consumers actually make decisions. We will cover how consumers deviate from rational choice models and which psychological motives (e.g., evolved adaptations) and processes (e.g., intuitive and reflective thinking) explain their decision-making. Subsequently, this course covers different contexts in which consumers have to make decisions, such as healthy living, environmentally friendly behavior, spending money and (dis)honesty. Lastly, we will focus on ethical and sustainable consumption. Some of the questions we will answer in this course include: "Under which circumstances do people tend to make irrational decisions?", "How do consumers search for information?", "What decision rules do consumers apply?", "How do technologies influence consumers?", "Does cognitive reflection improve the quality of decisions?", "Does spending money on expensive goods actually make us happy?", "What is hedonomics?", and "How to incentivize sustainable behavior?".This course consists of lectures, discussions related to the compulsory readings, quizzes, and group assignments. Although attending the lectures is not mandatory, it is strongly recommended to attend and actively participate in all the course activities. During the lectures, we will analyze cases that illustrate theories and processes related to the discussed topics. You will have an opportunity to ask questions during lectures and via online activities, for instance, during Q&A sessions. Besides these main activities, we prepared for you a surprise activity that will help you improve your knowledge of the mechanisms of irrationality and behavioral change.An individual assignment (10% of the total score), a group project on nudging/boosting (25% of the total score), and a written exam composed of both multiple-choice and open-ended items (65% of the total score).A set of relevant scientific articles and chapters which are updated each year.This course corresponds with the university program related to sustainability. For more information, see this: https://vu.nl/en/about-vu/research-institutes/asi. If you selected this course, ensure that you get access to the course manual to know the compulsory literature for each week of the course.The students are expected to have a good understanding of the basic cognitive mechanisms related to perception, memory, judgments, and attitudes.Course materials will be available on a Canvas course. Certain activities, such as guest lectures, will be organized online, and thus, it is strongly recommended that you participate in all the activities arranged through Canvas regularly.