Behavioral Economics: Nudging to Shape Decisions—Online

Through a highly interactive learning environment, you’ll learn how to use data intelligence to better predict outcomes and practically apply behavioral insights to your organization. You will discover the benefits of a well-designed choice architecture structure and explore the role biases, fallacies, and heuristics play in decision-making.

By attending this program, you will:

• Learn how to design products and services that create more value for customers
• Discover the emotional and cognitive underpinnings of economic behavior changes and how professionals make decisions
• Explore hidden biases and heuristics that either reinforce or counteract outcomes
• Discover how “choice architecture” may optimize decisions to benefit economic, regulatory, and policy creation strategies
• Gain the frameworks to draw actionable insights from data intelligence to improve customer experiences and engagement
• Discover the tools to optimize your value proposition for greater influence and impact
• Increase management decision outcomes that result in improved enterprise-wide efficiencies and processes

Format
Online with three live-online sessions 

Program duration
Eight weeks, 3–5 hours per week

This program is designed for mid- senior level executives from around the globe who are responsible for making impactful, efficient, and economic decisions for their organizations. Those who are in the role of presenting choices to clients, customers, and key stakeholders (choice architects) will benefit from this program.

In addition, those in the fields of finance, marketing, sales, business development, healthcare, market research, consulting, policy, and entrepreneurship will find this program beneficial. 

This program can be applied to any industry including healthcare, utilities, insurance, banking, retail, manufacturing, nonprofit, and government agencies.

• Analyze the evolution of economics from Classical economics (e.g., Adam Smith) to present day, and where behavioral economics began to flourish
• Understand the late 1970s inflection point that introduced psychology to the economic decision-making model
• Dissect systematic bias and describe the most cited, ground-breaking behavioral economy theory: prospect theory
• Explore examples of prospect theory’s importance in our personal lives and when running a business

• Explain the influence of intertemporal components in our choices and how they can provoke non-standard behavior (such as addictions, credit card dependence, etc.)
• Formulate mathematical models that explain phenomena such as procrastination and overindulgence
• Visualize examples of how self-control problems can lead to bad decision-making
• Apply Choice knowledge in a way that modifies behavior, improving the health of both your business and people around you

• Compare the standard rational economics assumption that humans are self-interested and the behavioral economics propositions that humans are altruistic
• Articulate why thinking only in financial incentives might not be wise and how fairness is compatible with successful business
• Analyze why and when it is socially accepted to charge fees or surcharges, and more generally to use standard economic pricing mechanisms
• Explore the importance of social norms and pressure, reciprocity, and distributive vs procedural justice

• Discover through a Qualtrics-based exercise what kind of motivational treatments are most effective in making someone execute a given task
• Recognize the many possible approaches to understanding motivation beyond behavioral economics
• Create a company culture built on solid psychological principles

• Recognize how information interventions over biased beliefs can modify mindsets and be potential sources of new standards in decision-making
• Learn how nearly everyone exhibits common biases, such as projection bias and “winner’s curse”
• Identify some of the most important biases, such as survivorship bias and overconfidence, and how they influence business decision-making

• Discover how our attention is limited and why this leads us to make important decision errors
• See how something as simple as not paying attention to a number’s digits can dramatically change economic markets’ function
• Understand how inattention works in a competitive market and grapple with the ethics of competing for consumer attention
• Learn the challenges and opportunities in addressing human rights abuses in cybertechnology

• Measure and identify the sensitive topic of discrimination through five distinctive methods
• Learn how standard economics categorizes discrimination into one of two models, statistical and taste-based
• Understand how psychology can deepen our understanding of how discrimination works and how we can combat it

• Apply basic principles of good choice architecture and the way we can influence people’s behavior
• Discuss examples of nudging, such as putting numbers into context and smart engineering/design
• Detect examples of nudges and the opposite “sludge” in the real world and apply nudges to your business or career

The program truly exceeded my expectations! It was very enlightening to better understand why people make their decisions and how those decisions can be influenced. The variety of content in each module was very engaging, and it was a bonus to have such a diverse group of peers from around the globe. The live sessions with Professor Pope, our guest speaker, Scott Young, and our mentors, Stuart and Jessica, were extremely worthwhile. I look forward to applying what I've learned both professionally and in my personal life.

Although I have an extremely demanding role, I found the material easy to manage on the weekends. I truly looked forward to each new module every week and readily shared what I had learned with family, friends, and co-workers. Behavioral Economics was not a dedicated focus area of study when I was in school, but the material resonated with me much more than classical economic theory. I also appreciated Professor Pope weaving ethical considerations into the content and discussions. Thank you!

—Renee Neubecker, Director of Strategy, Motorola Solutions, Inc.

I entered the program with high expectations because of the University of Chicago's reputation in Business and Economics education. My expectations were exceeded because of the quality of the program. I was particularly impressed with the video presentations by Professor Pope, where the research was explained in relatable and understandable ways. The program encompassed the perfect ratios of charm, humor, and earnestness and inspired me to dig deeper into the material of behavioral economics. 

—Richard Korneck