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How Money Makes Us Behave (The Good and Bad)
ByadminMoney can undermine our morals. If you don’t believe me, look what happened to a group of four-through-six-year-olds who were brought in for a simple experiment. Researchers asked them to sort objects from a box. Half sorted coins, and half sorted buttons. Then they were asked to do one more thing–try to find their way…
Is [Your Favorite Politician Here] Narcissistic Enough to Be a Good President?
ByadminI expect we all agree that the presidency is not a job for a shrinking violet. We acknowledge that a president without self-confidence would be a disaster in the making. But just how confident do we want our president to be? Is the kind of extroversion that helps people succeed in modern political campaigns also…
What Marathon Runners Have in Common with Used Car Salesmen
ByadminIn recent posts, I’ve presented several interesting pictures of how arbitrary thresholds influence behavior. I showed how airplane pilots speed up flights to make on-time arrivals, but don’t speed up late flights that won’t make it on time. I’ve shown that the price of used cars changes when the mileage on the odometer passes arbitrary round…
A Force More Powerful Than Anti-Vaxxers? Economics!
ByadminWe have a vaccine crisis in the this country. Not just the one caused by anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy, scaring Americans away from life-saving childhood vaccines with pseudo-scientific claims about autism. Instead I’m talking about a bigger crisis, one caused by a dangerously thin supply of vaccines. Wise parents who ignore the blatherings of people…
Graphic Cigarette Labels Work!
ByadminWarning – the warning labels pictured below are graphic but, according to a recent study, they increase the chances that people will quit smoking. Now we need to find a way to get legal permission to use such pictures, so we can shock people out of their habits.
Time To Stop Paying For Pepsi With Food Stamps
ByadminThe food stamp program helps over 40 million Americans pay for groceries. Unlike other forms of economic assistance, this program, called SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), only pays for food, thereby constraining how recipients make use of the aid. But are food stamps constrained enough? SNAP recipients experience higher rates of obesity and diabetes…

