The first semester includes four courses, each carrying 6 ECTS credits, spanning from September to December.

In September and October, students will engage in Developing Interventions through lectures, tutorials, and practical assignments, as well as Behavioral Influence.

In November and December, the curriculum shifts to Applying Research Methods through lectures and tutorials, followed by Emotional Influence lectures.

The second semester starts in January with a Master’s thesis, where you perfect your theoretical knowledge and academic skills, followed by the Master’s internship, which you will do in an external organisation, where you learn how to translate your academic knowledge and skills to an applied context. 

You will spend three (or more) months at a company or institution involved in influencing human behaviour, such as an advertising agency, market research agency, municipality, or training and assessment agency. Alternatively, you may opt for a research internship, which involves working on elements of an ongoing research project under the supervision of a researcher.

The goal of the master’s thesis is to gain hands-on experience with the generation of the fundamental knowledge on which evidence-based interventions are built; to improve empirical research skills and to specialise in a specific theoretical topic. You will conduct an empirical study within the research programme of one of the scientific researchers in the Social Psychology department. During this project, you will complete the entire empirical cycle: from formulating a research question, developing the empirical study and collecting data to analysing data and reporting on and presenting results.