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?
A dozen years ago, my wife filled out an NCAA bracket on a popular website. Out of more than 1 million entries, she finished somewhere around 17th. Think about it: 17th out of a million. Clearly I married up! I mean everyone says their spouse is one in a million, but how many really mean…
A song comes through your earbuds: good rhythm, clever lyrics, pleasing melody. You know whether you like the song, right? Maybe not. A series of studies using brain imaging raise the possibility that sometimes we think we like or dislike things, but our brains know better. I will explain what I mean, by describing one of…
The Atlantic recently reproduced a figure showing just how much people like things when they are free. Specifically, they looked at health interventions and show that people are more likely to take up these interventions, or products, when they don’t cost anything. And certainly, free is better than expensive, but free is also a whole…
The importance of sleep is perhaps most realized when we become sick. When we are hospitalized and most in need of every ounce of health, though, hospital care practically guarantees that we won’t get good sleep. Fortunately, two approaches hold promise to improve sleep for patients: one organizational, and the other a common trick of…
Take a look at the image below and decide what you are seeing: Some of you might have seen a “B.” Others might have seen the number 13. The image, after all, is ambiguous. For that reason, in fact, it was used by researchers to study how our hopes influence our perceptions. The study design…
The MacOS has a new self control app called, straightforwardly, SelfControl. The app has an ominous icon, which looks like a cross between a poker game gone wrong and the warning symbol on a bottle of poisonous chemicals: The app gives users the ability to temporarily block websites, which they know they are wasting too…