Mainstream finance assumes that people are rational and is mainly concerned with how they should behave when making financial decisions. In this module, instead, we focus on how individuals make financial decisions in practice, and we use insights from psychology and behavioural economics to explain why they systematically deviate from normative financial theory and make predictable errors. The cognitive, emotional, and social biases that influence people’s decisions bear important implications for individual investors, financial managers, and the dynamics of financial markets. The module builds on results from a wide spectrum of disciplines outside of finance (such as psychology, medicine, and sociology) and includes practical examples, simple in-class experiments, and discussions of academic studies.
Behavioural finance (BF) is an unorthodox area of finance that assumes financial markets are fundamentally inefficient. Advocates of BF believe that investor behaviour and decision making are driven by aspects of personal and market psychology. This module will involve an introduction to BF followed by a detailed analysis of the main issues.
The module aims to develop the themes introduced in the Introduction to Psychology Module in semester 1. The module integrates the approaches and findings of biological psychology in an attempt to understand the biological factors that explain why people behave as they do. The module will examine how innate biological mechanisms control our desires. For example how is hunger and satiation controlled within the body. We then apply those principles to understand how the system might break down and might lead to conditions such as Obesity The module is one of the pre-requisites for PSYC2025 and PSYC3048.
This module aims to develop your capabilities of addressing behavioural issues in an operational context. It goes beyond the typical focus on single decisions taken by an individual to decision making—possibly involving some strategic considerations—in what is called operations. Operations is an area of the management field focused on designing and controlling the processes involved with the production of goods or services. The study of operations can refer to the field of operational research or operations management. Known paradigms for the former include Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making and System Dynamics and for the latter Operations Management. In both cases, the module focuses on decisions under genuine uncertainty that cannot be meaningfully reduced to probability (risk). We cover novel and transparent tools that do not rely on probability, such as simple heuristics and simulations of system dynamics, and contrast them to traditional tools of optimisation in operational research and operations management.
This course will provide an overview of behavioural physiology, which is a growing, interdisciplinary research area that stems from the idea that animal physiology and behaviour are inextricably linked and mutually enriching fields of study. This field focuses on identifying the causal physiological mechanisms responsible for observed behavioural patterns in animal species, and distinguish which mechanisms are common across animal groups and which are unique adaptations to specific taxa. Animals also face a barrage of natural and anthropogenic pressures driven by environmental factors throughout their lifetime, which can modulate the connection between physiology and behavior.
The core of this module is a fieldtrip to Berlin. This fieldtrip is used to address questions about the production of urban space in twentieth-century Western Europe. Topics include: modern urbanism and architecture; political ideologies and monuments; memory and memorials; global capital and public space; the performance of urban space; and the reading/writing of urban space
The first portion of the module comprises the learning of the basics of human osteology and palaeopathology. The second portion is more theoretically driven and integrates bioarchaeology with skeletal analysis, including topics such as age, gender, ethnicity and activity patterning. The module will start by detailing the skeletal anatomy of the human body. In this part of the module, you will learn detailed skeletal human bioarchaeology. In the later part of the module, you will start to implement more interpretative aspects, such as assigning age, sex and stature to skeletons. Aspects of health and disease, and the identification of palaleopathology, will be developed and considered. You will also study aspects of funerary archaeology and its integration with skeletal studies and taphonomy to develop archaeologies of death and burial.
This module concerns global biodiversity, what we understand by it and why it is in crisis, and current efforts to conserve and manage it. We begin with an appraisal of different values of diversity at scales from genetic to species, communities and ecosystems. We then consider the causes and consequences of losing biodiversity, the nature and scale of its loss, countermeasures at global, national and local scales, and the costs we may face in replacing services that depend on biodiversity. During the second half of the module, we take a community ecology approach, focusing on interactions between species, rather than species per se. We look at networks of interactions, and consider how they have been used to address practical issues in conservation. Finally, we consider global impacts on ecosystems, how they interact with one another, and how we might mitigate their impacts. The module seeks to engage discussion and debate,and inform opinion, on biodiversity and conservation. We recommend that students have studied ecology previously in Southampton, or elsewhere, to make the most of this module.
This module concerns global biodiversity, what we understand by it and why it is in crisis, and current efforts to conserve and manage it. We begin with an appraisal of different values of diversity at scales from genetic to species, communities and ecosystems. We then consider the causes and consequences of losing biodiversity, the nature and scale of its loss, countermeasures at global, national and local scales, and the costs we may face in replacing services that depend on biodiversity. During the second half of the module, we take a community ecology approach, focusing on interactions between species, rather than species per se. We look at networks of interactions, and consider how they have been used to address practical issues in conservation. Finally, we consider global impacts on ecosystems, how they interact with one another, and how we might mitigate their impacts. The module seeks to engage discussion and debate,and inform opinion, on biodiversity and conservation. We recommend that students have done 1st or 2nd year ecology modules in their own School, for example, BIOL1029 and BIOL2004.
The module explores critical aspects of biodiversity in a changing world and ways to restore and enhance it. The course covers biodiversity concepts, key threats (such as invasive species, climate change and habitat fragmentation), restoration science and applied restoration methods. There will be a diversity of teaching and assessment methods, including fieldwork and field trips. We recommend that students have studied ecology previously.
The bioenergy industry is undergoing rapid growth due to the policy drivers underpinning the current interest in bioenergy, such as energy security and climate change. This module provides an overview of key topics on sustainable bioenergy production, including the main biomass systems for bioenergy generation and the wide range of bioenergy conversion and utilisation methods. This module adopts a whole systems approach and enables students to critically appraise the sustainability of various biomass energy production routes. The module teaching and learning will comprise lectures and a site visit. The coursework requires students to either design a biofuel/bioenergy production system, or critically review a biofuel/bioenergy production system and its real-world application.
BIOL6047 ‘Biofilms and Microbial Communities’ aims to provide an understanding of bacterial biofilms and the environmental, industrial and health care problems related to complex microbial consortia of societal importance. Students will learn to describe and explain the basis for biofilm development in nature and in chronic infections, as well as to understand and interpret the outputs of modern techniques in microbial biofilm research. Biofilms and Microbial Communities’ follows our foundation microbiology courses BIOL2038 and BIOL2044 (either of which will be a prerequisite for the 3rd year module), and directly addresses Southampton’s cross-faculty strengths in biofilm research, and as lead for the National Biofilms Innovation Centre. As such lectures on this module will be contributed by academic members of staff from working on interdisciplinary projects with Health Sciences, Medicine, Engineering, and Ocean and Earth Sciences.
This module aims to provide an understanding of bacterial biofilms and the environmental, industrial and health care problems related to complex microbial consortia of societal importance. Students will learn to describe and explain the basis for biofilm development in nature and in chronic infections, as well as to understand and interpret the outputs of modern techniques in microbial biofilm research. Biofilms and Microbial Communities' follows our foundation microbiology courses BIOL2038 and BIOL2044 (either of which will be a prerequisite for the 3rd year module), and directly addresses Southampton's cross-faculty strengths in biofilm research, and as lead for the National Biofilms Innovation Centre. As such lectures on this module will be contributed by academic members of staff from working on interdisciplinary projects with Health Sciences, Medicine, Engineering, and Ocean and Earth Sciences.
