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200141 SE Advanced Seminar: Mind and Brain (2022W)
Behavioral Economics and Neuroeconomics
Continuous assessment of course work
Labels
Vertiefungsseminare können nur fürs Pflichtmodul B verwendet werden! Eine Verwendung fürs Modul A4 Freie Fächer ist nicht möglich.
Registration/Deregistration
Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).
- Registration is open from Th 01.09.2022 10:00 to Mo 26.09.2022 10:00
- Deregistration possible until Mo 03.10.2022 10:00
Details
max. 20 participants
Language: English
Lecturers
Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N
- Friday 30.09. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Monday 03.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Tuesday 04.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Wednesday 05.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal B Psychologie, NIG 6.Stock A0610
- Friday 07.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Monday 24.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Tuesday 25.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Thursday 27.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum Psychologie NIG 6.OG A0621A
- Friday 28.10. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal E Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
- Monday 07.11. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Tuesday 08.11. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
- Friday 11.11. 16:45 - 18:15 Hörsaal H Psychologie KG Liebiggasse 5
Information
Aims, contents and method of the course
Assessment and permitted materials
The final grade of the course will depend on three factors: the average grade for both essays (40%), the grade for the group presentation (40%) and the student’s class participation during both the lectures and the Q&A sessions (20%).
Minimum requirements and assessment criteria
During this course, each student will complete three assignments: 2 essays and one presentation.
Presentations - The presentations are organized as a group assignment, with each presentation group consisting of 3-4 students (final numbers may differ based on the number of course participants). Group selection will take place on the first (introductory) lecture of the course.
Each group of students will be assigned to one of the three blocks. During each presentation the group will reflect upon the block’s contents by selecting a topic of choice (a list will be provided during the first lecture of the course), formulating a research question and sketching an experiment to test this research question. Crucially, the presentation should be centered around two main questions: what are the rational predictions of the experiment (if the participants are fully rational, what behavior do you predict) and what are the behavioral hypothesis (what do you expect participants to do?). Each presentation should be concise (15 minutes presentation, 5 minutes for questions).
Essays - Students who are not presenting during a block will instead individually write a short essay to reflect on the contents of the respective block. These essays should be highly concise (max 2 pages). In these essays, please briefly summarize the contents of the block (1 page) and reflect on their contents. During the reflection part, please indicate how (if at all) will the concepts discussed during the block influence your (future) research career, how (if at all) will you apply them and where do you see limitations to the concepts discussed?
Presentations - The presentations are organized as a group assignment, with each presentation group consisting of 3-4 students (final numbers may differ based on the number of course participants). Group selection will take place on the first (introductory) lecture of the course.
Each group of students will be assigned to one of the three blocks. During each presentation the group will reflect upon the block’s contents by selecting a topic of choice (a list will be provided during the first lecture of the course), formulating a research question and sketching an experiment to test this research question. Crucially, the presentation should be centered around two main questions: what are the rational predictions of the experiment (if the participants are fully rational, what behavior do you predict) and what are the behavioral hypothesis (what do you expect participants to do?). Each presentation should be concise (15 minutes presentation, 5 minutes for questions).
Essays - Students who are not presenting during a block will instead individually write a short essay to reflect on the contents of the respective block. These essays should be highly concise (max 2 pages). In these essays, please briefly summarize the contents of the block (1 page) and reflect on their contents. During the reflection part, please indicate how (if at all) will the concepts discussed during the block influence your (future) research career, how (if at all) will you apply them and where do you see limitations to the concepts discussed?
Examination topics
Reading list
Association in the course directory
Last modified: Tu 27.09.2022 13:48
Since this course will be predominantly aimed at students coming from a behavioral science background (that is, psychology, neuroscience or the cognitive sciences), we will focus on the economics part of behavioral and neuro-economics. In particular, a substantial amount of attention will be devoted to a key concept that lies at the core of (modern) economic thought, but which has historically been almost entirely omitted from the behavioral sciences: the notion of economic rationality. Serving as a guiding line throughout the course, we will first discuss the concept of economic rationality before exploring its strengths and limitations both in its role as a theoretical benchmark, as well as regarding its empirical validity. In turn, the difference between rational models and empirical reality forms the foundation of behavioral economics; that is, a branch of economic focused on incorporating insights psychology and cognitive science into our understanding of everyday decision-making.
The course consists of three blocks. During the first block we will introduce and discuss the concept of economic rationality on an individual level: what is rational behavior, where are its historical origins, what place does it hold in economic theory and behavioral economics and finally, what are the limitations to rationality. In the second block we will build upon rational behavior by exploring the implications of rational behavior for social interactions that is, how rational principles help us to create a parsimonious framework to frame the interactions between multiple agents. Finally, in the third block we will explore what is perhaps the newest field of decision-making research: neuro-economics (oftentimes also referred to as neuro-decision science). During this block we will explore the interaction between rational agents and the brain, and how rationalist models can help us inform the sort of computations that we may expect humans to perform.