MG404      Half Unit
Consumer Insights: Behavioural Fundamentals

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

For many companies, non-profit organisations, and political figures, success relies on understanding the “consumers.” What is it that they really want, and why? What information will they attend to, and what will they ignore? How do they make decisions, why do they sometimes make bad ones, and how can we help them make better ones? It can be tempting to answer these questions intuitively, based on your own experiences as a consumer. However, intuitions about human psychology are often wrong.

• Chronic and temporary sources of customer needs, desires, and motivations
• How customers search for information, acquire, and process information
• How customers allocate attention and how to attract it
• Customer decision-making processes, and the heuristics and biases that play a role
• The formation of attitudes and intentions, and processes for persuasively changing them
• Social influences on intentions and behaviour, including unconscious determinants
• Why intentions are or are not translated into behaviour, and what strategies can be used to narrow the intention-behaviour gap.

30 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Regular multiple-choice quizzes to assess understanding and application of course concepts. 

• Consumer Behavior, 6th edition. Hoyer, MacInnis, & Pieters. South-Western Cengage Learning, 2010;
• Consumer Behavior: Science and Practice. Kardes, Cronley & Cline. South-Western Cengage Learning.
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Cialdini, Robert. Collins Business, 2006.

Further references, especially for journal articles and HBS case studies, will be provided at the commencement of the course.

Essay (70%)

Discussion post (30%)

For detailed assessment information, including all deadlines and timings, please see the relevant course Moodle page. Assessment timings will be available at the start of each term.