Cognitive psychologists and researchers interested in policy studies and marketing are especially interested in trying to analyze and explain the differences between the decision strategies that in theory appear to be most rational and the strategies that we tend to adopt in practice. There will be short assignments that are due each week at the time of the discussion section. Often you will need to submit answers to sets of problems posted on the web that are designed to illustrate the concepts introduced in lecture. There will also be a few assignments that ask you to analyze an actual case study in a one or two page essay. The grade will be based on four exams and an average of the weekly assignments.
Regular attendance is required.
This course most likely does not overlap much with material that you had in high school and since it is multi-disciplinary in approach, you are likely to find at least some parts of it pretty interesting. It should be easy for most students and not require huge amounts of time if one comes to class regularly and does the problem sets each week. The study habits required are those appropriate for a science course or a course in foreign language.