Tag: behavioral science
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Episode 16: How To Induce Compliance
Let’s assume I’m evil. What I want to do is INDUCE COMPLIANCE. I want people to do what I want. Well that might be hard to do. But what if I could get people to comply with a request? That may be simple and effective. Dr. Susan Weinschenk wrote a whole book on how to…
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Episode 11: Status Quo Bias
Hey, here’s a suggestion. Go workout. Right now. Go! Whatever you do, pound iron, run super hard, walk around the block; whatever it is, go get after it for half an hour. Okay bye! Hey so that was great? Did you do the workout? Right now, did you actually get up and change whatever you…
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Episode 9: What Are Heuristics?
I have a confession to make. It took me years to understand the concept of heuristics. I don’t know why. I mean, I’m a smart guy, who obviously understands this economic mumbo-jumbo far better than the ordinary person. And heuristics is/are one of the foundational ideas of behavioral economics. Maybe it’s the name. Too Greek?…
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Episode 17: Cooperation and Punishment
Did you go to college? Hopefully a liberal arts college? Even if you didn’t, think back to some late night with your buddies, maybe a little weed was smoked. Or in some dopy poly-science class with the one know-it-all jerk who would always shoot up their hand to give some long running opinion about society?…
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Episode 7: How Using the Ultimatum Bargaining Game Proves That Cultures of Trust Require Public Retaliation (NOT Altruism)
Game theory. Or should I sayyy LAME THEORY. Ayyyyyyy…. This post is about one small game, the ultimatum bargaining game, that’s useful in explaining the tools behavioral scientists can use to measure the reactions of other humans. Did you ever watch the (now old) movie A Beautiful Mind? It’s about a mathematician named John Nash…
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Episode 5: Consumers overvalue what they have, and that’s a problem.
Another derivative of what I call “ownership bias” is the difference between the willingness to accept money (WTA) and the willingness to pay money (WTP). People exhibit ownership bias when there is something that they feel is theirs; that they own. Let me take you on a quick mind-journey. Your grandfather carefully cut, planed, jointed,…
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Heuristics: The Unsung Heroes Of How People Think
We talk a lot about “cognitive biases” — the tendencies we have to think and act in ways that are not always logical, and not always accurate, but we forget that many of these brain shortcuts are very adaptive and very successful. In this podcast episode we dive into the positive side — Heuristics. What…
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Behavioral Science vs. Behavioral Economics
What is behavioral science? How is it different from behavioral economics? And why are both so cool? Plus, Guthrie geeks out about Daniel Kahneman’s research. You can subscribe to the HumanTech podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to podcasts.
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Learn About Brain and Behavioral Science
We’ve launched our new course curriculum in Brain and Behavioral Science! If you’re interested in learning more about why people are the way they are, why people do what they do, and how to work more effectively with people and communicate more clearly, then check out our new series of courses: You can take one…
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Human Tech — Check out the new podcast
Just a quick announcement to let you know we’ve started a new weekly podcast called HumanTech. I’m hosting this podcast with my (amazing) son, Guthrie. Here’s the description at iTunes: HumanTech — A podcast at the intersection of humans, brain science, and technology. We explore how behavioral and brain science affects our technologies and how technologies affect…
