Predictably Irrational with Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He co-founded Irrational Capital and has written eight books, including Predictably Irrational and Misbelief, which he wrote after a COVID conspiracy theory cast him as one of its villains. We cover the vintage Swiss Army knife model of decision-making, the India experiments behind Large Stakes and Big Mistakes, what Fortune 500 satisfaction surveys predict about stock returns, fairness as a judgment no regression will settle, and the writing Dan is doing now about the end of life. What we covered: States that introduced fines for texting and driving and watched accidents rise The brain as a vintage Swiss army knife, adequate at many tasks, built for a world we have left Car engineers who design against human error, social media engineers who design for it Prepaid debit against credit, weekly loads against monthly, Monday against Friday The India experiments, where a month of pay riding on a puzzle made people worse at solving it The brain surgeon offered $100,000 and threatened with a hitman in parking spot 33 Which survey questions predict alpha, and which predict nothing Perceived fairness outranking salary level, and the argument Dan could not win on Wall Street The company that spent a day celebrating failed projects and paid half a million dollars to the winner Bureaucracy as an engine whose definition of success is nothing happening The hospital janitor we want to stop doing their job, and what job descriptions cost us Theory X, Theory Y, and the ancient craftsmen who spent half their time on beauty Two years spent interviewing the people who wanted him tried, imprisoned, or hanged Writing as a way to make sense of his mother's death, and the three books he has in progress People: Alfie Kohn, author and previous guest on this show Simon Jones, narrator of Dan's audiobooks Ed Lazear, economist behind the Safelite windshield study Sam Glucksberg, psychologist of the candle problem experiments Douglas McGregor, originator of Theory X and Theory Y Books: Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely Misbelief, Dan Ariely The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams Articles: Large Stakes and Big Mistakes, Dan Ariely, Uri Gneezy, George Loewenstein and Nina Mazar, The Review of Economic Studies, 2009 https://academic.oup.com/restud/article/76/2/451/1594205 Organizations: Duke University, Center for Advanced Hindsight, Center for Advanced Bureaucracy, Irrational Capital, Harbor Capital, Alphabet's X, Safelite Find Dan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danariely/ Website: https://danariely.com Substack: https://danariely.substack.com Bureaucracy: https://bureaucracy.danariely.com Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: DLQOKHPSWUMSTCMH.