Program Overview

University Program Information

The university offers a range of programs for students, including undergraduate and master's degrees, as well as PhD opportunities.

Undergraduate Programs

• Undergraduate Degrees
• Employability Programme
• Open Days

Master's Degrees

• Behavioural Science Skills MSc
• Child Mental Health MSc
• Psychology of Child Development and Education MSc
• Psychology and Behavioural Analytics MSc
• Scholarships and Funding

PhD Programs

• How to Apply
• Current PhD Opportunities
• PhD Supervisors
• Research Themes

Research Areas

• Research Communities
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience and Neurocognition
  • Social Processes
• Research Themes
  • Auditory Neuroscience
  • Cognition and Brain Health
  • Early Cognitive Development
  • Language and Literacy
  • Memory, Attention, and Learning
  • Minds and Machines
  • Neurocognition of Emotion
  • Pro-Social and Anti-Social Behaviour
  • Uncertainty, Curiosity and Learning
  • Variation in Language and Cognition
• Research Centres
  • Security Lancaster
  • Centre for Ageing Research
  • Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science
  • CREST Research

MSc Psychology of Advertising

Welcome to MSc Psychology of Advertising

Reading List

Group One: Course Essentials

• Seducing the Subconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising (Robert Heath)
• Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
• The Choice Factory (Richard Shotton)
• Using Semiotics in Marketing (Rachel Lawes)
• The Illusion of Choice (Richard Shotton)
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Steven Levitt & Stephen Turner)
• The Hidden Persuaders (Vance Packard)

Group 2: Really interesting background reading

• The Pursuit of Pleasure (Lionel Tiger)
• Why Does The Pedlar Sing? (Paul Feldwick)
• Subliminal (Leonard Mlodinow)
• Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies in Flow Consciousness (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi & Isabella Csikszentmihalyi)
• No Logo (Naomi Klein)
• The Attention Merchants (Tim Wu)
• The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers (Douglas Atkin)
• Status Anxiety (Alain De Botton)
• The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)
• Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning (Jon Steel)
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (Shoshana Zuboff)
• World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech (Franklin Foer)

Group 3: Definitely worth a look, if you have time

• Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner)
• Why We Buy (Paco Underhill)
• Black Box Thinking (Matthew Syed)
• Brands in the Balance: Meeting the Challenges to Commercial Identity (Kevin Drawbaugh)
• How to Use Advertising to Build Strong Brands (Ed: John Philip Jones)
• The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind (AK Pradeep)
• Excellence in Advertising (Ed: Leslie Butterfield)
• The Advertised Mind (Erik Du Plessis)
• Research Methods and Statistics (Ian Walker) (As a basic intro/refresher)