BA Economics & Psychology

The module will provide you with a balanced introduction to economics which will be based on a programme of systematic directed reading, supplemented by experiments and exercises undertaken in tutorials. 

The module uses the innovative CORE (Curriculum Open-Access Resources in Economics) Econ resources, which provides a complete introduction to economics and the economy. CORE Econ teaches about the economy and economics by starting from a question or a problem about the economy - why the advent of capitalism is associated with a sharp increase in average living standards, for example - and then teach the tools of economics that contribute to an answer. This innovative approach ensures that students understand how the tools of economics can help us understand the modern economy. 

The second half of the module is the study of how analytical thinking, scientific method and associated tools can be used to help decision making. This Business Analysis element of the module will provide an overview of where methods and tools are widely used across a large range of industries including the manufacturing, retail, healthcare, financial services, travel, and electronics industries, as well as in local and national government. 

Examples of where Business Analysis is put into practice are: 

• the management of new building projects
• the design of efficient transport systems and plant layouts
• personnel scheduling
• allocation of resources and financial modelling and forecasting

This area of expertise can help to reduce costs, increase revenues, improve customer service, increase efficiency and can even save lives. 

The aim of this module is to provide you with a solid foundation and understanding of the theories and principles underlying marketing and entrepreneurship. A combination of the subjects will be taught to enhance understanding of the way the two disciplines address issues related to both the macro and micro-environment contexts of markets and entrepreneurship.

Marketing is everywhere in contemporary society. It plays a central role in business as it is concerned with the creation and retention of customers. The module is designed to give you a foundational understanding of marketing and a critical introduction to the topic of marketing in both theory and practice through a series of lectures and workshops.

In your first-year class you will explore the core concepts of value and exchange. You will learn what marketing is and its core principles such as analysing the marketing environment, developing a marketing strategy, and dealing with the marketing mix i.e., product, price, place, and promotion. You will learn how organisations develop a customer centric approach to marketing and how that can create a competitive advantage in a dynamic business environment.

The assessment for this module will involve individual coursework.

In this module, you will be exposed to concepts and ideas from economics, sociology, psychology, geography and other social sciences, all in the context of the competitive business environment.

Entrepreneurship too is a complex process involving many different skills and activities, though it is based upon a 'mindset and process by which an individual or group identifies and successfully exploits a new idea or opportunity. For this part of the module, you'll be working in teams to learn about the ideation process, which forms the foundations of new venture creation, in our Creative Challenge.

This module introduces learners to the field and practice of international business and management.

Drawing on classical and recent debates in theory and practice including, but not limited to commercial concerns, learners will be equipped with an understanding of the foundational principles and developments of the subject.

In the module, we consider how international business and management is researched, and facilitate a critical understanding based on real-life case studies in international contexts. This module gives learners the capacity to look at the past, present and future in organisations and provides the foundations for intellectual progression in the subject, and broadly, for year two and beyond.  

This module will provide you with an introduction to finance and accounting, covering the basic concepts and practicalities of corporate finance, the principles of valuation, financial management and business investment, the role and purpose of company accounts and their usefulness, security analysis, risk and returns from investments, and personal finance.

At all times the module content will be linked with financial behaviour and events in the real world.

This module includes two thematic parts which run in parallel across the semester. One part, Introduction to Tourism Studies, introduces tourism management as both, international business and as a global cultural phenomenon.

It provides insights into key concepts and theories to understand the intricacy of this industry in commercial, cultural and environmental terms. The other part, Managing People, focuses on the contemporary and practical issues of how people are organised and managed in the workplace and examines different theoretical perspectives which help our understanding of the complex relationship between the employer and the employee in the contemporary business environment.

The ICE Pathway - “Innovation, Commercialisation & Entrepreneurship”, where you'll learn about the Foundations of 'What is Business’.  Alongside:

• Personal & Professional Development: Who am I? How Do I learn? How do I lead & work in a team?
• Knowledge & Practice: What is a business/organisation? Why does this matter? How does this affect society?
• Experiential Learning: Real-world cases & clients; team-based and student-centred Learning approaches

This class aims to support you in developing key skills that are important to both your academic and future career. These include skills associated with:

• research
• data analysis
• critical writing
• team working
• communication

You'll take this class in semester 1 and are not expected to have any prior knowledge of psychology. It explores learning theory, developmental psychology, personality, biological psychology, and the scientific basis for psychology.

This class is taught in semester 2 and covers sensation and perception, cognitive psychology, social psychology, abnormal psychology, and research methods.

Topics

Semester 1 topics include:

• Working in Business Organisations
• Working Business Research & Consultancy
• Working Internationally
• Working in the Third Sector
• Rhetorics & Oratory

Semester 2 is about developing the proposal of Management Development Programme 3; with a presentation and a final report.

Class description

The second year concentrates on developing understanding through industry-specific contextualisation. Sessions are weekly and three hours in length.

The sessions are thematically linked to the pathways for individualised experience in third year whilst also drawing on the theoretical knowledge developed in Management Development Programme 1. In order to develop understanding, organisations will deliver a half-day session. This consists of a one hour plenary introduction where the company and case study are introduced. This is followed by the group sessions where you undertake activities in relation to the case study set by the company.

This is the core Microeconomics class in Year 2. It aims to develop your understanding of: the concepts of consumer choice; the motives of the firm and profit maximisation; the market and its role in achieving equilibrium prices and quantities; and the implications of market power. It introduces you to mathematical techniques commonplace in Economics, giving you the ability to apply these in a wider economic context.   

The class builds upon the macroeconomic foundations established in the first year Economics class and both extends and deepens analysis. This class will develop your ability to use key macroeconomic models and will also provide an introduction to the analysis of economic data. 

This class reveals how our understanding of higher mental functions has been enhanced through:

• theoretical and experimental studies of normal human cognition
• neuropsychological studies of how cognitive functions may be damaged as a result of brain lesions

You'll be introduced to the main features of measurement, research design, and statistical analysis in psychology.

Following a general introduction, the course presents fundamental concepts, issues, and debates in the field of research methods.

You'll also become familiarised with the conceptual basis for inferential statistical testing, and introduced to different inferential statistics. Finally, a brief introduction to qualitative research methods takes place.

This class introduces social psychological theories and research that provide insights into why people believe what they believe, and why they behave the way they do.

Topics covered include attribution theory, aggression, prosocial behaviour, group influence, norms, conformity, obedience, and attitudes.

It ends with an introduction to health psychology, demonstrating how social psychological principles covered earlier in the class are applied to pressing, real-world health issues such as dietary behaviour, smoking/alcohol-use, and suicide.

The third year of centres on individualised experience in an organisational context through one of the following pathways:

• Internship/Charities - gain practical experience in a private or third sector organisation. You need to negotiate and locate your own organisation and experience – this is one of the key learning points of the pathway.
• Research and consultancy - a facility for local small businesses to gain from the experience and expertise of those within Strathclyde Business School. You work on two live business consultancy projects (one in each semester) and, as a team of six, develop solutions and strategic initiatives for the local SME economy.
• International experience – only available for students who are undertaking an international exchange for either one semester or full year.
• Vertically Integrated Projects - working on a cross-faculty basis to research longitudinal projects (including the ‘Bill Gates Toilet Challenge, Solar Panels for Gambia and Enterprise in Schools) you work with a team of students from all levels of study (first year undergraduate to final year PhD) to further the work of the project.

In addition, you’re required to undertake a social responsibility element (this accounts for one quarter of the overall workload).

These have been designed to provide support to the Curriculum for Excellence and the Widening Access to Higher Education programme. There are no formal classes for Management Development Programme 3 although there is pathway support with the pathway leads and tutor support.

Adam Smith's hidden hand - markets result in efficient outcomes - doesn't always work. We seek to understand why by using the tool of game theory to analyse how agents interact and discuss market power and externalities.  We then consider other issues in public economics including cost-benefit analysis, fiscal federalism, taxation and crime.  You will also learn more about how to analyse microeconomic data.

This class builds on the Macroeconomics you studied in second year by covering four topics in detail:

• models of economic growth
• the effects of macroeconomic policy in an open economy
• the interrelationships between money growth, output, unemployment and inflation
• the implications of high government debt. 

You will also learn more about how to analyse macroeconomic data. 

This class builds on year 2 and equips you with a broader, more advanced set of methodological and analytic skills. These skills are essential for carrying out the year 4 dissertation and for being able to read and understand articles published in academic journals.

You're encouraged to think scientifically about conceptual and practical issues related to the study of individual differences, with specific reference to intelligence and personality. You'll gain the chance to put this knowledge into practice by designing your own measurement instrument.

You'll be introduced to some of the core topics in cognitive psychology

• Perception and action, particularly how we perceive time and recognise faces
• Memory and learning, including models of episodic and working memory
• Language, including word production, sentence comprehension, and discourse processing
• Thinking, specifically problem solving, deductive reasoning and judgement and decision making.

This class reviews the ways that children develop from infancy right through to the end of adolescence. Key theories are presented and used to explore the extent to which children’s development is continuous or stage-like and whether specific skills develop more quickly than others. Issues relating to infancy, ‘theory of mind’ (understanding others’ thoughts and beliefs), executive function (planning and monitoring abilities), language, and communication form the core themes in the class.

This class allows you to consider current ideas and positions within social psychology. Four themes drive the class

• Attitudes and attitude change, covering the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Health Belief Model
• Identity, with a focus on social, personal and group identities
• Prejudice, connecting both attitudes and identities, and covering a broad range of areas such as social representations, stereotyping, prejudice and conflict
• Epistemology, where consideration is given to the theory of knowledge, how social psychological knowledge is produced, and to what effect

The purpose of this class is to provide the opportunity for you to learn the basic principles of brain function, and to encourage you to address the implications of this understanding for their own view of how behaviour is generated. It includes coverage of electrophysiology and psychopharmacology, neuroanatomy, research methods in neuroscience. There are focused sections relating to the visual system and the motor system.

The dissertation is an important part of the fourth year programme. Single Honours Economics BA students are required to submit a dissertation in Economics while Joint Honours BA students may submit a dissertation in Economics or in their other Honours subject. 

Information Economics, the topic of this class, considers market failure resulting from uncertainty and information asymmetry. The course looks at two specific examples of market failures: moral hazard and adverse selection. We will discuss policy solutions to reduce the negative impacts of these market failures on society. We will also apply uncertainty to game theory and learn how to find Bayesian Nash Equilibria. Furthermore, we will examine the impact of externalities on social welfare and learn about the optimal provision of public goods.

This class aims to provide you with the required tools to understand current macroeconomic issues, such as the interactions between the banking sector and monetary policy or the policy responses to the global financial crisis.  Throughout the class, the analytical usefulness of the theoretical models taught is illustrated with real-world examples. 

This course investigates the actions that firms in an industry might take to preserve their profit in that industry, and the implications that this has for competition policy and regulation. We take an analytical approach to the issues which will be supported by examining case studies and current events. 

In third year, you will have learned about regression in both a cross-sectional data and time series data context. This class extends that knowledge to two core topics: causal inference and forecasting. Both are highly relevant topics to real-word economics. Understanding the effects of economic policies and decision-making requires careful empirical analysis and understanding of what the data can and cannot tell us. Topics on causal inference build skill in this area. Furthermore, policymakers and economist often want to know something about what to expect, for example of unemployment, given what has happened recently and in the past. Topics in forecasting build skills in this area.

In causal inference, we begin with foundations on how to think about correlation vs. causation and threats to interpreting regression model coefficients as causal effects. We then introduce two methodological approaches. These are instrumental variables and difference-in-differences. Under both we develop the intuition and key assumptions that will allow interpreting statistical results from a regression model as a causal effect from a variable or policy change of interest. We further work with example cases in labs and learn how to implement the methods with data in R, and we use tutorials to think about these methods in action and continue developing the intuition.

In forecasting, we will introduce you to basic tools needed to become a forecaster, such as understanding what a loss function and forecast horizon is. In addition, you will learn various forecasting evaluation techniques to compare competing models.

This class gives a balanced view of the role of finance in promoting long-run economic growth, but also booms and busts. The nature and role of financial intermediaries will be introduced, and, afterwards, formally addressed in a simple aggregate growth model. Empirical evidence will be examined, before turning to the specifics of micro-finance. The importance of financial globalisation will also be investigated. Finally, the rest of the class will be devoted to deciphering the causes and consequences of the current financial crisis.

Behavioural Economics offers alternative theories that merge psychological insights with economic theory and are based on experimental and other evidence, that attempt to provide a better explanation of real-world behaviour.

This class is concerned with exploring these behavioural theories with the aim of providing you with an expanded toolkit with which to approach ‘real-world Economics’ that is based on the burgeoning Behavioural Economics literature that has emerged over the past two or three decades.

After studying this, you should be able to extend much of your previously-learned knowledge in Microeconomics in various directions that take into account more realistic ways of modelling how individuals behave.

The class provides you with an introduction to Natural Resource Economics, Environmental Economics and Energy Economics, establishing connections between the economics and the policy aspects of the class topics. It focuses on the contributions of Economics to understanding environmental, energy and natural resource problems, their causes, and the design of effective public policies to counteract them.

The dissertation is an opportunity for you to undertake an original piece of research, closely supervised by a single member of staff. Dissertations can be of such high standards that they are subsequently published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

This class will support students' development in applying their knowledge and understanding of psychological theory and evidence in a work setting, as well as their ability to articulate the knowledge, understanding, and skills they have developed through the placement, their studies, and other extra-curricular activities.

The class aims to provide students with an opportunity to gain practical, work-based experience in an area that is professionally relevant to psychology. The placement experience should encourage the transfer of academic psychological knowledge, understanding, and subject-specific skills to an applied context. Students will also be supported in developing reflective and professional skills, and the ability to articulate these skills. This class is intended to support students' transition into employment and/or further study after graduation. It is also anticipated that there will be benefits to placement providers in the roles fulfilled by students, and in the longer term in supporting the development of the future workforce.

The placement involves completing a minimum of 60 hours of active engagement within a suitable organisation. An additional 50 hours has been added to account for travel time.

Students will be responsible for setting up a placement with an organisation relevant to their interests. We hope to provide students a list of organisations who have indicated a willingness to receive applications from students seeking a placement. 

In the assessment for the class, students are required to submit a 2000 word written assessment that covers:

• An account of their role within the placement organisation, including a critical reflection on the student's professional practice in fulfilling the requirements of the role. The student will also relate back to the self-evaluation assessment written at the beginning of the placement;
• Demonstrate an understanding of the application of psychological theory and evidence relevant to the placement organisation and/or experience in the placement role;
• Discussion of their personal and professional development, following the placement, with a view to their future development.

Advanced Organisational Behaviour is an Honours year elective, which runs over two semesters, offered in the degree subject Human Resource Management (within the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation). It is also an elective in Psychology. There is no prerequisite for Psychology students and it is expected that students with no prior experience of HRM courses will be able to fully engage with this class. The class draws from organisational behaviour, work psychology and work sociology to explore current topics within work and employment, and the implications for people management.  

This optional class aims to help students gain an understanding of the ways in which human psychology is influenced by cultural context. This class builds upon your third-year psychology classes, attempting to expand the topics covered in these classes by emphasising the role culture plays in the mental life of human beings. This class will start with an introduction to cross-cultural psychology, discussing its various definitions and general theoretical orientations. Then, the class will explore the similarities and differences in social behaviour across cultures, and how culture influences people’s emotions and values. This class will also discuss intercultural contact (i.e., acculturation, cross-cultural competence).

This optional class will be delivered by a combination of lectures and seminars. An experiential/problem-based learning approach is adopted. Relevant theories and empirical research will be discussed, and students will have the opportunity to explore how the knowledge can be used to in real-world scenarios. Overall, this class will enhance students’ understanding of different perspectives on psychology and increase their awareness of cultural differences in psychology.

Mental health problems are a growing public health concern worldwide, at both personal and societal levels. This class will explore the application of psychology to the field of mental health, with the consideration of the theoretical, practical and ethical underpinnings of the mental health field. The class will also explore approaches to psychological assessment, formulation and treatment that are commonly used in mental health practice.

• Lectures will cover the following key areas:
• Psychological assessment
• Psychological formulation
• Overview of most common mental health problems (e.g. depression, anxiety)
• Clinical practice and psychological interventions
• Positive mental health

This class has two broad aims: 1) to provide students with an introduction to critical thinking and review some of the theoretical and empirical literature around critical thinking and epistemological thinking, and 2) to give students the opportunity to practice critical thinking and thereby develop and sharpen their skills in this important area. Literature on critical thinking and epistemological thinking will be reviewed, and both everyday aspects of critical thinking (such as interpretation of articles published in newspapers and on the world wide web) and more technical aspects (such as critiquing journal papers within psychology) will be covered. Following three lectures setting out the theoretical background, teaching will be workshop-based, in which students will work in tutorial groups engaging in critiquing exercises. Different kinds of articles will be jointly critiqued, beginning with ‘everyday’ materials such as newspaper opinion pieces, thence moving on to informal presentations of psychological material in the form of discussion articles published in magazine-style journals such as ‘The Psychologist’, and ultimately building up to the critique of published articles in psychology journals. This will therefore simultaneously broaden the students’ knowledge on a psychological topic of great practical significance (just how good are ordinary members of the public at thinking critically?) and at the same time help to develop their skills in a way that should positively impact their studies of psychology at Honours level.

This class introduces students to the scientific study of belief in religion and belief in / experience of ‘paranormal’ phenomena.  The content is not concerned with the veracity of experiences or beliefs but rather how psychology can measure associated variables, explain the formation and maintenance of beliefs and examine the effect that holding such beliefs or having such experiences can have, both physically and psychologically.  Students will be expected to critically evaluate experimental methodology and theories of cognition in relation to the class content. 

This is a one semester class in which students will select an approved psychology topic for intensive, non-empirical study. Students will demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the conceptual and theoretical content of an area of psychology drawn from a list of approved topics. This class affords Honours students an opportunity to develop and demonstrate skills in literature search, information assimilation, evaluation and in depth critical analysis of a chosen topic. The class places emphasis on independent student learning. The course will help the student to develop critical writing skills over a period of time through independent writing and self-directed study. The aims are:

i. to develop an extensive in-depth knowledge of one key topic area in psychology.

ii. to develop critical thinking skills such as questioning the assumptions and conclusions of others and looking at alternative ways of dealing with questions, facts, and arguments.

iii. to develop and refine skills relating to the systematic acquisition of information.

iv. to develop and extend essay writing skills, including discussing and formulating arguments, summarizing, and presenting materials.

This class provides an introduction to the field of sleep health, which is a developing area of sleep psychology that focuses on the evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders by addressing behavioural, psychological, and physiological factors that interfere with sleep. Sleep disorders impair quality of life and contribute to physical and mental health problems. Despite this, they are an under-recognised and under-treated threat to public health. Sleep experts have long recognised the need for greater public awareness of the impact of poor sleep and the importance of promoting the evidence-base for appropriate assessment and treatment. This class will introduce students to the specialist, multidisciplinary area of sleep health with a very clear focus on insomnia disorder, the most common sleep disorder and the one of the most prevalent mental health complaints in Europe. 

In this class, we will cover the psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and real world applications of face perception and recognition. The class will cover current theory in relation to face recognition, but importantly we will also assess the critical use of faces in real world and forensic contexts. For example, faces are of critical importance in criminal identification in policing and the justice system (e.g. from CCTV, bystanders, juries and the victims of crime), and in the prevention of identity fraud (e.g. should we put our faces on our credit/debit cards?). There will also be a clinical aspect to this class as we’ll look at individual differences in face recognition, looking at patients with prosopagnosia and Metropolitan Police Super-recognisers. Each of these areas will be explored in detail, to show how our understanding of the science of face perception can inform us about our interest in, and reliance on, faces. 

It is understood that our population is ageing; for example, the fastest growing age group comprises those aged over 85 years. The potential for health, economic, and social burden due to ageing is therefore increasing. With a better understanding of ageing processes, the burden of an ageing population could be minimised, successful ageing and better quality of life promoted, and the contributions of older adults to society celebrated. Contemporary psychological theories of ageing will be presented from a number of perspectives, and the class will draw upon research that has used a variety of methodological approaches. Students will also be encouraged to engage with the material via a range of teaching methods, including traditional lecture content, video clips, and interactive tasks. Typically, we will address: theoretical and methodological approaches to studying psychology and ageing; cognitive ageing; lifestyle factors; emotion in older age; ageing in society, including stereotyping; ageing in the workplace/retirement; wisdom; the positive influences of older adults in society. Teaching delivery is anticipated to be via 5 on-campus sessions and an online peer review task.  

This class will build upon knowledge developed in second (Cognition & Neuropsychology C8201) and third year level (Cognition C8304). Specifically, it will provide further understanding on how to apply principles of psychological assessment in broader contexts. The class will pursue three aims: 1) promote understanding and knowledge about the contributions and challenges of psychological assessment in various contexts and settings, 2) familiarise with aspects related to the selection of appropriate testing procedures and 3) the generation of hypotheses to guide such procedures and interpret their outcomes.

The class will offer a critical appreciation of a range of tests, procedures and techniques used to better understand a person’s psychological makeup and behaviour. Knowledge will be acquired on how such tests and procedures are used in experimental and applied settings. Learning will involve case discussions, discussion of commonly used tests, with students investigating cases and procedures. Students will develop an appreciation of the types of psychological testing.

The aim of the class is to facilitate the development of knowledge and understanding of theories and evidence-based research in relation to the psychology of physical activity. This class will provide opportunities for students to develop their critical evaluation skills of theory and research and to gain experience of measurement and behaviour change techniques in this area. The aim is also to give students the opportunity to apply what they have learned to a ‘real-world’ case study by implementing a behaviour change intervention to increase active behaviours.  This class extends material covered in previous years in biological, social, cognitive and health psychology but is applied to physical activity behaviour. Level 4 classes are very popular with students as they cover focussed, specialist topics and staff expertise.   

This lecture series will critically examine the contribution that evolutionary theories have made to our understanding of human mate preferences. It will cover fundamental questions in the area, such as how mate preferences are shaped by environmental and hormonal factors, and will have a strong focus on recent methodological and theoretical controversies in the literature. 

Sleep is a multidisciplinary field and is relevant for a variety of medical fields such as neurology, respiratory medicine, cardiology, and psychiatry. The focus thereby lies on the physiological aspects of sleep, as well as the organic sleep disorders such as sleep apnoea or narcolepsy. However, sleep is also a behaviour, and examining sleep through the behavioural lens has implications for the field of psychology at the individual and also the public health level. If we can understand how to change sleep behaviour, we can initiate change in the individuals and the public's health and wellbeing. In this class, we will explore the importance of examining sleep at the behavioural level, which can be modified to improve health and wellbeing. 

The class will offer you the opportunity to acquire an in-depth understanding of the theories and empirical data that are relevant within the field of neuropsychology of ageing and dementia. It will cover the differences between normal and pathological decline in old age and will provide information on the neuropsychological profiles and pathologies which characterize different forms of dementia. It will provide you with a solid foundation in neuropsychology. You will learn to identify the features which can aid early diagnosis and differential diagnosis of the dementias (e.g. Alzheimer's disease, Vascular dementia and Lewy body dementias). You will become familiar with how different aspects of cognition are distributed within the brain and will be aware of the consequences of impairment.

Different methodologies that are used for the study of the dementias will also be explored (e.g. neuropsychological assessment, functional and structural neuroimaging) and you will learn to critically evaluate the benefits and pitfalls of each method.
Overall, the class will provide you with key knowledge that will be relevant for the study of neurological conditions, for health-based research more broadly, and relevant should you choose to work in academia, healthcare or other industries (linked to older adults or neurological populations).

Cognitive Psychology (CP) is central to the understanding processes that are required for memory, attention, and learning. It can also provide insights into cognitive conditions that affect how people function and behave. CP underpins all aspects of psychological theory and practice (synonymous with developmental, social, educational and neuro psychology). The class will explore and critically examine key learning theory and consider transference and application from theory to real life contexts.  

This class is an option which is available to a restricted number of students who'll apply to take part. It involves a placement with a European University partner working in a research team during the summer between years 3 and 4. Additional assessment is to be completed during semester 1 of year 4.