Why People Agree to Work Boring Jobs
NPR recently covered my research with David Comerford on effort aversion. Our research gives some insight into how people wind up in boring jobs. You can listen to the NPR Morning Edition segment here.
In an effort to lose weight, you pass on the steak sizzler at your favorite family restaurant and settle, instead, for a healthy salad. But you might be in for a dieting double whammy. First off, the salad probably has more calories than you realize. For example, Applebee’s Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad packs a whopping…
As a physician who conducts research on decision-making, I have been asked many times: What does behavioral economics teach us about the role of living wills in medical care? Famed behavioral economist Dick Thaler recently opined on this topic in the New York Times, stating his support for a “requirement that all patients meet with their…
If I told you there was a new medicine effective in treating a previously untreatable illness, you might be interested. If you have the illness, you might even read up and try to figure out whether the medicine would work for you. Ideally, you will evaluate the strength of evidence – was it a randomized…
I remember one time having a conversation with Daniel Kahneman, one of the founders of behavioral economics, about the topic of happiness and emotional adaptation, in the context of chronic disability. We were discussing emotional impact of experiencing a limb amputation. Kahneman pointed out that it is the loss of the limb that is really…
According to traditional economic theory, when people perform jobs for pay, they decide whether the pay they receive is large enough to justify the effort they put into the task at hand. But what if someone else is doing the same work for more pay? They probably won’t feel so great about their jobs anymore,…
Most people would say they would prefer to work in a job with interesting and fulfilling opportunities. But new research shows that people may pick a boring job over a stimulating one if they perceive they aren’t being paid enough for extra effort. Duke University Fuqua School of Business marketing professorPeter Ubel and David Comerford, an assistant professor at…