PB307      Half Unit
Consumer Psychology for Sustainability

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

The course will address the psychology of consumption at different levels of analysis: individual, group and societal. It will ground this psychology in the relevant literature, and teach you the field’s foundational theories, allowing you to develop a mental model of human behaviour as it relates to consumption.

This is not a standard marketing or consumer research course. It is not about brand territories and market shares, but about how understanding various psychological processes in conjunction with these forces can provide us with tools to improve the world. How can we leverage consumer psychology to solve our sustainability problem?

By the end of this course you should:

• Be able to present the social psychology of consumption at different levels of analysis: individual, group and societal level.
• Be able to relate this to core psychology and behavioural science.
• Be able to use the above to explain phenomena classically described in marketing and consumer science.
• Have explored innovative research methods, theories and business models relating to sustainability and consumption.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

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

Lectures will be delivered jointly with PB417, an MSc level course in the department. Classes will be specific for undergraduate students.

For each major and minor assessment option there is an equivalent piece of formative coursework. These are designed to help students to prepare for the summative assessments. 

• Baca-Motes, K., Brown, A., Gneezy, A., Keenan, E. A., & Nelson, L. D. (2012). Commitment and behavior change: Evidence from the field. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(5), 1070-1084.
• Belk, R.W. (1988). Possessions and the Extended Self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139-168.
• Belk, R. (2010). Sharing. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(5), 715–734.
• Bendapudi, N.& Leone, R.P. (2003). Psychological Implications of Customer Participation in Co-Production. Journal of Marketing, 67(1), 14-28.
• Cialdini, R.B., & Goldstein, N.J. (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 591-622.
• Griskevicius, V. & Kenrick, D.T. (2013). Fundamental motives: How evolutionary needs influence consumer behaviour. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(3), 372-386.
• Jensen schau, H., & Gilly, M. (2003). We Are What We Post? Self-Presentation in Personal Web Space. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(3), 385-404.
• Lahlou, S. (2017). Installation theory: the societal construction and regulation of behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Luchs, M. G., Naylor, R. W., Irwin, J. R., & Raghunathan, R. (2010). The sustainability liability: Potential negative effects of ethicality on product preference. Journal of Marketing, 74(5), 18-31.
• Muniz, A. M., & O’Guinn, T. C. (2001). Brand community. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(4), 412–432.
• Richins, M. L., & Chaplin, L. N. (2015). Material parenting: How the use of goods in parenting fosters materialism in the next generation. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(6), 1333- 1357.
• Rysman, M. (2009). The Economics of Two-Sided Markets. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23(3), 125-143.
• Waring, T. M., Goff, S. H., & Smaldino, P. E. (2017). The coevolution of economic institutions and sustainable consumption via cultural group selection. Ecological Economics, 131, 524–532.

Project (70%)

Project (30%)

Students will choose ONE minor and ONE major assessment from a list of assessments.