Food might give us a good example of why we need to think more carefully about rationality now that we create products and markets….
Hi, I’m Dan Ariely. I do research in behavioral economics and try to describe it in plain language. These findings have enriched my life, and my hope is that they will do the same for you.
My latest book, The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
When we make decisions we think we're in control. But are we?
Excerpts and Videos
Hi Dan,
I like this idea of video blogging. Especially in your “theme context”. It make sense.
Not everbody has to sell wine to be a successfull as videoblogger
Best
Th
Test
Hi Dan. First time poster here – so I guess I should say I loved the book! Great job.
I’m currently reading a somewhat related book, which I’m sure you’ve read – Nudge.
One of the things that seems apparent is that people are pretty bad at resisting temptation for a short-term gain but long-term loss, especially when the feedback is not immediate. In this case, cake is the gain and weight gain is the loss.
One (somewhat) obvious thing that you could do about it is to make the downside more apparent when you’re making the choice – e.g. displaying a calorie count for the item and maybe an icon (at the level of happy/sad face) of how good for you it is via some metric.
I like these kinds of solutions – the merchant will end up gaming the system via making portions more sensible instead of ever-larger – but the consumer still gets a choice of cake or no cake.
Hmm. I believe we are conditioned to believe we need sugar and fat. They are constantly advertised and we are inundated with the desire to eat them. In reality we can get those sugars and that taste from naturally occuring products like Fruit. But fruit doesn’t have the high profit margin of sugar products so they aren’t advertised as much or in the same manner. If fruit was advertised in the same manner and quantity as sugar based foods we would see alot more healthy eating.
My solution, Do NOT Watch commercials! We allow ourselves to be influenced by these unhealthy products.