Psychology and Economics, BSc (Hons)

This programme is based in the Department of Psychology and it draws on the well-established undergraduate programmes in economics and psychology. The mandatory courses in the programme are taken from the core courses in both disciplines, ensuring that students will graduate with a deep understanding of the nature of both disciplines and of the many fruitful linkages between them. Students will take courses in all core areas of psychology with an emphasis on social and cognitive psychology, which will equip them with the tools necessary to understand the links between individual and social behaviour. They will also study courses in microeconomics and macroeconomics, introducing them to the principles of economic analysis, applied to individual decision making within a rational choice framework, and to the behaviour of economic systems. In third and fourth year, students will take courses at the intersection of psychology and economics, studying axiomatic analysis of decision making and observationally based models of choice, so that they can explore the implications of these distinct, but complementary, explanations of (human) behaviour. Finally, they will undergo training in research methods and statistical analysis, culminating in a dissertation, which will run across both semesters of their final year. At all stages of the programme, there will be opportunities to take optional courses, allowing students to tailor their studies to meet their own interests. The precise choice of courses at each stage will change over time, adapting to students’ interests and the research specialisms of academic staff.