Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He co-founded Irrational Capital and has written eight books, including Predictably Irrational and Misbelief, which he wrote after a COVID conspiracy theory cast him as one of its villains.
We cover the vintage Swiss Army knife model of decision-making, the India experiments behind Large Stakes and Big Mistakes, what Fortune 500 satisfaction surveys predict about stock returns, fairness as a judgment no regression will settle, and the writing Dan is doing now about the end of life.
What we covered:
- States that introduced fines for texting and driving and watched accidents rise
- The brain as a vintage Swiss army knife, adequate at many tasks, built for a world we have left
- Car engineers who design against human error, social media engineers who design for it
- Prepaid debit against credit, weekly loads against monthly, Monday against Friday
- The India experiments, where a month of pay riding on a puzzle made people worse at solving it
- The brain surgeon offered $100,000 and threatened with a hitman in parking spot 33
- Which survey questions predict alpha, and which predict nothing
- Perceived fairness outranking salary level, and the argument Dan could not win on Wall Street
- The company that spent a day celebrating failed projects and paid half a million dollars to the winner
- Bureaucracy as an engine whose definition of success is nothing happening
- The hospital janitor we want to stop doing their job, and what job descriptions cost us
- Theory X, Theory Y, and the ancient craftsmen who spent half their time on beauty
- Two years spent interviewing the people who wanted him tried, imprisoned, or hanged
- Writing as a way to make sense of his mother's death, and the three books he has in progress
People:
- Alfie Kohn, author and previous guest on this show
- Simon Jones, narrator of Dan's audiobooks
- Ed Lazear, economist behind the Safelite windshield study
- Sam Glucksberg, psychologist of the candle problem experiments
- Douglas McGregor, originator of Theory X and Theory Y
Books:
- Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely
- Misbelief, Dan Ariely
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Articles:
Organizations:
- Duke University, Center for Advanced Hindsight, Center for Advanced Bureaucracy, Irrational Capital, Harbor Capital, Alphabet's X, Safelite
Find Dan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danariely/
Website: https://danariely.com
Substack: https://danariely.substack.com
Bureaucracy: https://bureaucracy.danariely.com
Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: DLQOKHPSWUMSTCMH.
