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Explore why consumers make the choices they do in this two-week behavioral economics academy for high school students at Dartmouth.
Instructor:
Course Description
A shopping cart sits abandoned. A subscription renews even when no one uses it. A preselected option shapes what someone chooses. Why do these familiar decisions happen, and how should businesses respond?
In this course you will study behavioral economics: how people actually make decisions and how organizations can design choices responsibly. Explore loss aversion, mental accounting, defaults, and choice overload, then use those ideas to examine real consumer situations. Learn to map a decision journey, notice friction and unnecessary obstacles known as sludge, and distinguish an explanation of behavior from a label that merely describes a bias.
Before the first session, read ten selected research papers to build a foundation for discussion. Across six live sessions, investigate real company cases and current evidence about which nudges work and how much they help. Question effect sizes and publication bias as you compare potential interventions. Practice identifying a testable mechanism, weighing costs and risks, and outlining a test with clear conditions, metrics, and a decision rule chosen in advance. All work relies on public sources; the course does not involve collecting data from people.
For your individual capstone, develop a Behavioral Strategy Brief that identifies a business problem, proposes interventions, and lays out a test plan on paper. Turn your reasoning into a five-slide deck and a 90-second pitch. Taught by Dartmouth Senior Lecturer and consumer-research practitioner Kimberly Rose Clark, this two-week full-day academy for high school students connects evidence, ethical judgment, and business strategy.
What Will You Do?
• Read and discuss key research papers and examine real company cases
• Explore loss aversion, mental accounting, defaults, and choice overload in consumer decisions
• Map a customer decision journey to spot friction, leverage points, and sludge
• Distinguish a behavioral mechanism from a bias label and make a testable prediction
• Compare intervention ideas for likely effect, cost, failure risk, and ethical implications
• Create a Behavioral Strategy Brief, a paper-based test plan, a five-slide deck, and a 90-second pitch
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Explain behavioral economics concepts and identify friction and sludge in a consumer decision journey
• Link a causal behavioral mechanism to a testable prediction about consumer choices
• Evaluate evidence critically, including effect sizes and publication bias
• Rank proposed interventions and outline a paper-based test with conditions, metrics, and a decision rule
• Assess ethical and brand risks and communicate a strategy through a brief, slides, and a short pitch
You’ll leave with your individual Behavioral Strategy Brief, five-slide deck, and 90-second strategy pitch.
Why Behavioral Economics Skills Matter
A business may know what it wants customers to do without understanding what gets in their way. Mapping real choices and identifying friction helps students move beyond assumptions about why people act. Concepts such as defaults and loss aversion become more useful when paired with evidence about whether an intervention actually changes behavior.
That evidence also needs scrutiny. Comparing effect sizes, anticipating failure, and setting a test rule in advance encourages more careful reasoning. Asking whether a nudge respects people's choices brings ethics and brand trust into the same discussion as business results. These habits support thoughtful work in marketing, product design, research, entrepreneurship, and strategy.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
If you wonder why people stick with defaults, react differently to prices, or give up partway through an online purchase, this academy turns those questions into a business investigation. You'll read research, discuss company cases, evaluate proposed nudges, and prepare an individual strategy project.
The course involves reading ten research papers before the first session. Your test plan is developed on paper using public sources; you will not collect data from people.
Your Summer at Dartmouth
Dartmouth Precollege Summer Scholars gives high school students time to investigate an academic interest in depth in Hanover, New Hampshire. Coursework introduces new questions, challenges students to explain their thinking, and brings together peers with different interests.
The Upper Valley setting and shared summer experience offer opportunities for new friendships and growing independence alongside academic exploration. Students can consider which subjects they want to pursue further while getting a taste of a university community.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive