Interesting Government Nudge
Do you think this will work to get people to stop texting and driving?

Do you think this will work to get people to stop texting and driving?

I’ve done a fair amount of research on how people emotionally adapt to life circumstances. My research is mainly in the context of illness and disability, where people bounce back from adversity more than expected. But people can also emotionally adapt to good things, a very important phenomenon for consumer behavior. We are ecstatic when…
McDonald’s has announced that it would no longer market junk food to kids and it’s going to include more fruits and vegetables in on its adult menu. The move came after another fast food joint, Burger King, rolled out the lower-calorie French fries it has dubbed “Satisfries.” Apparently, they are 20% healthier but “taste the…
In a recent post, I give you a flavor for Rich Cohen’s wonderful book The Fish That Ate the Whale. One of the things that struck me in reading his book was the psychology of entrepreneurial success. It is often difficult to be a superstar entrepreneur if you are realistic. Often the biggest successes in…
See my conversation with Dan Ariely, about behavioral economics, the limits of free markets, the desire to become Homer Simpson, and the joys of family arguments. The conversation takes place on his very entertaining website: Predictably Irrational.
Do you eat when you’re bored? So do I. Then again, I eat when I’m not bored, too. So the real question is: do we all eat more when we’re bored than, say, when we’re highly entertained? The answer, according to a clever study by Aner Tal and colleagues, is no. In fact, sometimes being…
We have an epidemic of C-sections in the US, now accounting for almost 1 in 3 births. That represents a 50% increase since the mid-90s, despite all the advances we’ve seen in obstetrical care. Sometimes C-sections are critical to saving the life of either baby or mother. But C-sections are major surgical procedures, with commensurate risks….