The integration of psychology and marketing

Two of my independent study students recently returned from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Meeting in San Antonio where they presented our paper on anticipation and how it impacts the evaluation of outcomes.  The study examined the benefits of planning ahead and how it can enhance your overall experiences which in itself is quite interesting.  What’s more noteworthy (for the time being) is that both students are not psychology students.  They’ve taken consumer behavior and they know that psychology influences consumer behavior but they initially treated psychology as a different field.  In some schools, fields like psychology or economics exist in different universes than business, students are exposed to the linkages between them.  We try our best not to exist in our silos but it’s hard not to when we’re preoccupied with the difficult task of publishing quality work in our field.  However, when we diminish the interdisciplinary nature of our fields the students miss out on potential opportunities.  For Kenny and Sara, did presenting a research study at a psychology conference make them better psychologists (not by much), but did it make them better versed in the integration of psychology and marketing, absolutely.

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