Despite our intentions, why do we so often fail to act in our own best interest? Why do we promise to skip the chocolate cake, only to find ourselves drooling our way into temptation when the dessert tray rolls around? Why do we overvalue things that we’ve worked to put together? What are the forces that influence our behavior? Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University, is dedicated to answering these questions and others in order to help people live more sensible – if not rational–lives.Via Open Culture, Ariely will offer a course--"A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior"--starting next spring, and I've signed up for it. It's completely free, if you don't count the 7-10 hours per week required. His blog notes that he is a "founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight." Boy, that's what I need! HINDSIGHT!!
Monday, November 12, 2012
Welcome to Dan Ariely
I found a new blog that's fascinating: Dan Ariely. It's now on the right-hand side of XE's home page in Blogs I Love. Ariely's "short bio" says,
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Hmmm...the guy has a knack for seductive titles. Especially for those of us who have high quirky quotient. Look forward to your sharing homework.
ReplyDeleteNaomi: I love the title of the book he says he's working on now:
ReplyDelete"My free time is spent working on a guide to the kitchen and life—Dining Without Crumbs: The Art of Eating Over the Kitchen Sink—and of course, studying the irrational ways we all behave."
Sharing my homework....well, I'll do that. Homework....gah. I have never been any good at actually DOING homework. But this might be fun!
I think you have something here. I've been known to engage in irrational behavior which included my initial obsession with "computering" that ultimately led to my blog. I could certainly have done with a little advanced hindsight. Keep me up on the homework you're not good at doing.
ReplyDeleteJoared: Somewhere in the bible it says "the thoughts of man are not the thoughts of god." One of the interesting things about getting older is coming to see there is more than one way to think about just about everything--including thinking. I've seen older people I love and admire plunge deeper into the authoritarian views of our childhood, despite all evidence (ha! to me, anyway) of the wrongness of much of it. but right? or wrong? or simply evolution? Recently, here & there anyway, the voters of this country seem willing to drop age-old burdens of prejudice. In any event, my lifelong battle with homework may have been something other than laziness. It was simply wanting to do something else. A wasted life? Or a personal path exploring the upper reaches of otherness? We all want our lives to have meant something. I look forward to this hindsight!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the reason we don't do what we should do is that we want to do something else? (giggles). I decided ages ago that I'm unimprovable, but I sincerely admire those who strive to better themselves.
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