Why do the behavior of your customers and colleagues, company boss and the mafia boss, neighbours and the naysayers, often seem to defy logic and violate rationality? Why do they often seem to react and respond in a way that seem to make no sense?
The short answer is that human beings are not rational beings. The long answer is that people are not rational beings, people are not rational beings, people are not rational beings! Rather, people are largely psychological beings who are frequently and easily influenced by a long list of psychological factors and forces.
From thinking about what to say during a job interview to how to answer when the prosecutor asks you if you have ever cheated on your income tax filing, from deciding whether to buy a new or a used car to whether or not to kidnap your rich boss for ransom, we are invariably influenced not just by our attitude toward the issue at hand but also the people around us, the context we are in, as well as many other internal and external psychological factors. This course discusses and explores some of these more interesting and important factors.