Neuroscience
Time magazine has a review of a new book from the behavioural economist Richard Thaler and his colleague, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein, called Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.
This is the latest in a spate of books which collectively detail the myriad ways in which humans are far from rational in their decision making. According to the review, Thaler and Sunstein show how these irrationalities can be exploited for the betterment of society - "protecting people from cognitive and social forces that lead them to decisions that even they would describe as poor."
To take a couple of examples from the review, it turns out that people can be encouraged (or "nudged") to use less gas and electricity, simply by letting them know how much they use in comparison with their neighbours. Similarly, the numbers of people signed up as organ donors could be massively increased by making it an opt-out system rather than an opt-in system, as we currently have here in the UK.
As you'd expect, the book is accompanied by a slick website and blog. I noticed the latter features at least one video of the authors in conversation, as well as an analysis of the decision making processes involved in Milgram's classic obedience study.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Link to Time magazine book review.
Link to Nudge website.
Link to decision making research covered on the Digest blog.
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Neuroscience
Nudging people towards the right decisions
Time magazine has a review of a new book from the behavioural economist Richard Thaler and his colleague, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein, called Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.This is the latest in a spate of books which collectively detail the myriad ways in which humans are far from rational in their decision making. According to the review, Thaler and Sunstein show how these irrationalities can be exploited for the betterment of society - "protecting people from cognitive and social forces that lead them to decisions that even they would describe as poor."
To take a couple of examples from the review, it turns out that people can be encouraged (or "nudged") to use less gas and electricity, simply by letting them know how much they use in comparison with their neighbours. Similarly, the numbers of people signed up as organ donors could be massively increased by making it an opt-out system rather than an opt-in system, as we currently have here in the UK.
As you'd expect, the book is accompanied by a slick website and blog. I noticed the latter features at least one video of the authors in conversation, as well as an analysis of the decision making processes involved in Milgram's classic obedience study.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Link to Time magazine book review.
Link to Nudge website.
Link to decision making research covered on the Digest blog.
- Is Behavioural Economics Such A Big Deal?
The latest issue of Prospect magazine features a freely available, hard-hitting debate on whether or not behavioural economics is all its cracked up to be. Standard economics sees people as selfish, rational decision-makers. Traditional economic models...
- Using Psychology And Neuroscience To Improve Society
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (the RSA) has launched a new project that seeks to bring together all that we know about our brains and the way we think, so as to help humankind reach its full potential in a...
- How Predictably Irrational Are You?
The Independent newspaper recently featured an article and interactive quiz by behavioural economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, about - you guessed it - how irrational we are. Most articles or books on this topic begin by saying...
- Recognising The Sacrifice Of Organ Donation
Eight thousand people in the UK are waiting for donated organs to become available; over 90,000 are waiting in the USA. This chronic shortage will continue while pro-donation activists continue to oversimplify the issue by focusing on the idea of organ...
- Blink!
Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Blink, is now available. Today's New York Times Book Review features a review of the book, written by David Brooks. The review is available here (free registration required). Previous discussion of Blink and...