Choosing your Choice Architect(ure)
“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” — Samuel Johnson *** In the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein they coin the terms ‘Choice …
Behavioral Psychology
The Fundamental Attribution Error: Why Predicting Behavior is so Hard
The Fundamental Attribution Error refers to a logical fallacy: our belief that the way people behave in one area carries consistently over to the way they behave in other situations. We tend to assume …
Hares, Tortoises, and the Trouble with Genius
“Geniuses are dangerous.” — James March How many organizations would deny that they want more creativity, more genius, and more divergent thinking among their constituents? The great …
Fun with Logical Fallacies
We came across a cool book recently called Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies, by a social psychologist named Bo Bennett. We were a bit skeptical at first …
Eager to Be Wrong
“You know what Kipling said? Treat those two impostors just the same — success and failure. Of course, there’s going to be some failure in making the correct decisions. Nobody bats a thousand. I …
Incentives Gone Wrong: Cobras, Severed Hands, and Shea Butter
Incentives drive our behavior. Failing to consider incentives can lead to unintended consequences. In this post, we show you how incentives can go wrong and how we can use them to our advantage. *** …
Maria Konnikova on How we Get Conned
There’s a scene in the classic Paul Newman film The Sting, where Johnny Hooker (played by a young Robert Redford) tries to get Henry Gondorf (played by Newman) to finally tell him when …
Dan Ariely on How and Why We Cheat
We all like to think of ourselves as honest, but there are inevitably certain situations in which we’re more likely to cheat. There are many things that make us less honest, like feeling disconnected …
Biases and Blunders
You would be hard pressed to come across a reading list on behavioral economics that doesn’t mention Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. …
Bias from Self-Interest — Self Deception and Denial to Reduce Pain or Increase Pleasure
Our desire to feel good about ourselves permeates everything we do. Wanting to maintain a positive self-image often leads us to adopt a biased image of the world. If we want to learn to align …
The Psychology of Risk and Reward
An excerpt from The Aspirational Investor: Taming the Markets to Achieve Your Life’s Goals that I think you’d enjoy. Most of us have a healthy understanding of risk in the short term. When …
Books Everyone Should Read on Psychology and Behavioral Economics
Earlier this year, a prominent friend of mine was tasked with coming up with a list of behavioral economics book recommendations for the military leaders of a G7 country and I was on the limited email …
Daniel Kahneman — What I Know
Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks with the Guardian about his pessimistic mother, the delusion of investment bankers and the need for irony. Human beings cannot comprehend very …
Why Do People Choose Political Loyalties Over Facts?
One of the theories is cognitive dissonance—we find it difficult to hold contradictory ideas in our head at the same time. Cognitive dissonance predicts that given the choice between our emotional …
Making Good Citizenship Fun — Richard Thaler
Interesting article by Richard Thaler on encouraging good citizenship by making the desired behavior more fun: Lotteries are just one way to provide positive reinforcement. Their power comes from the …
Daniel Kahneman: How We Think
In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, …