Tomorrow (Tuesday, October 15 from 6-7pm), the Center for Advanced Hindsight will host a discussion on behavioral economics and applications in financial services. We are seeking partnerships with local financial services organizations that are interested in using behavioral-based strategies to help them better serve their mission. The attached Request for Proposals provides a summary of our proposed program. We will also be discussing the RFP on Tuesday and answering questions about the program.

The event is RSVP only. If you are interested in attending, please email rebecca.kelley@duke.edu

A few friends, well aware of how completely obsessed I am with all things dog-related, have been sending me this recent New York Times op-ed about whether or not dogs are people. The answer that Emory neuroeconomist, Gregory Berns, gives is “yes.” At least the kind of limited personhood we might grant to small children. I was hoping to love this piece but instead felt frustrated that the findings seem to rely more on—to borrow a phrase—the seductive appeal of neuroscience, rather than any empirical basis.

Berns begins by noting limitations in understanding animal emotion, disparaging the “behaviorism” in animal research. He tries to get around these restraints by putting dogs in an fMRI machine. After some trial and error (that’s adorable to visualize), Berns explored activation in the caudate nucleus—a brain region associated with reward, memory, and learning—focusing specifically on the caudate’s role in anticipating things that we enjoy, as well as its functional and structural similarity across dogs and humans. He writes in the critical two paragraphs:

In dogs, we found that activity in the caudate increased in response to hand signals indicating food. The caudate also activated to the smells of familiar humans. And in preliminary tests, it activated to the return of an owner who had momentarily stepped out of view. Do these findings prove that dogs love us? Not quite. But many of the same things that activate the human caudate, which are associated with positive emotions, also activate the dog caudate. Neuroscientists call this a functional homology, and it may be an indication of canine emotions.

The ability to experience positive emotions, like love and attachment, would mean that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child. And this ability suggests a rethinking of how we treat dogs.

First, it seems an empirical and philosophical stretch to consider “experiences positive emotions” as a coherent and plausible criterion for personhood. I’m also unconvinced that caudate activity is solid enough ground to infer sentience, since rats have a functioning caudate that responds to rewards.

Second, it’s not at all clear to me why neuroscience is required to make this conclusion. If we want to give personhood to animals that experience positive emotions, then why go through the trouble and expense of putting dogs in an fMRI machine? It’s pretty obvious to me when my dog is happy. He perks up, he wags his tail, he grins, he looks at me lovingly when I scratch his ears, he sighs contentedly when he chews on bones and other things, and so on. I don’t need to examine activation in his caudate to realize that he’s experiencing positive emotions.

It could be argued that we can’t actually observe the positive experiences in dogs—we can only make inferences from behavioral similarities. And in that case we’d want to look deeper into the subjective experience that dogs might have. Neuroscience is a tempting alternative, but it’s a shallow one—it only feels more scientific without providing much payoff.

What fMRI scans tell us is that certain regions of the brain receive more blood at certain times during a task. So if we see more blood flow to the caudate when dogs look at their owners or see a hand signal associated with food, we infer that the caudate is more active. But how is caudate activation enough to infer something about what dogs experience?

We still haven’t observed any emotion, but rather brain activation. You could appeal to structural or functional homology, as Bern’s does (i.e. “dogs and humans both have caudates that respond to similar things, so they must feel similarly, too”), but notice we’re no better off than where we started. We’ve simply replaced one assumption with another. If the first (“dogs and people both smile, so dogs feel like people do when they smile”) is unjustifiable, so must be the neural one. We’ve learned nothing new about what dogs experience, but rather that dogs show activity in reward regions when they see things they enjoy (which, like, duh?). We’ve only bought the sexy feeling that the science we’ve done is somehow more legitimate.

Which leads me to my last pet peeve (hah) about the OpEd—the constant suggestion that neuroscience has triumphed over the constraints of behaviorism, while ignoring that psychology has been looking beyond behavior just fine for a long time. Animal psychology has been no exception, here. I know of and have been involved in a lot of comparative cognition research with animals (the operative word being “cognition,” not “behavior”). I have good friends who work with Brian Hare at Duke, the co-director of the Canine Cognition Center at Duke and author of The Genius of Dogs, and my undergraduate advisor is currently diving into dog cognition, herself. There is a lot of great research that explores how canines think, not just behave. All without the aid of fMRI’s.

fMRI is a great tool, no doubt. But it’s not the only way to learn about the mind, and it certainly has it’s limits. These limits do not go away, however, when looking at other animals. So even though I love my dog (a lot), he’s probably not a person (though I might treat him like one, sometimes). If he is, though, it’s going to take more evidence than this study to convince me.

~Vlad Chituc~

This piece was originally published on the author’s personal blog, which he encourages you to follow. 

Project Description

We are currently seeking a Full Stack Developer to join our team to develop and support a growing collection of software for collecting and analyzing internal research, as well as developing software that will be marketed and released to a public audience.

This position will help build and maintain a suite of fun and innovative web and mobile apps to help people make better moral, financial, and health decisions. This suite includes user-facing mobile apps, admin-facing web applications, and backends for interaction between the two. Among the projects currently in motion is an internal iPad app that helps the Center and its collaborators around the world run experiments on the go. Another app, (Sample) Size Matters, is publicly available and currently being used to collect data from participants all over the globe who download the app. Developing this app is one of the Center’s main priorities, and we are excited to improve it so that it ultimately becomes the best method for data collection worldwide.

While some applications will only be used internally (and the programming focus will be on functionality), others will be distributed to the public and will therefore require a greater focus on interface design and consumer usability.

Overall, the position will be responsible for programming and maintenance of apps, including:

• data collection instrument design
• survey implementation across multiple mobile platforms (e.g., Android and iOS, phones and tablets)
• field-based direct data collection and quality control
• secure device and cloud server storage (Heroku/Mongolab)
• secure transmission of data using mobile platforms

Specific Responsibilities

1. Build Software/Apps for Internal Research Purposes. Serve as the technical lead with a team of researchers to identify innovative approaches for collecting, storing and synthesizing data captured through mobile devices. Develop innovative ways of using mobile platforms for the deployment of study materials. Design, develop, implement and document research software tools. Manage cloud-based web/application servers, configure server software and manage the technology to ensure secure transmission, storage and data sharing.
2. Build Software/Apps for Public Consumption. Oversee the development of commercial applications with a focus on well-designed, attractive, user-friendly applications. The software/apps for public consumption will be designed to teach consumers about behavioral economics. The primary aim of these applications is to educate and nudge people toward making better decisions, helping people in moral, financial, and health domains.
3. Maintain Legacy Software/Apps for Internal and External Use. Support the suite of applications currently in use by the CAH (for both research purposes and public consumption). Maintain pre-existing apps, as well as update software when necessary. Work collaboratively with the original developers to understand the important features of the apps and revise the software appropriately.
4. Optional: Specialize in user interface, human-computer interaction, and design. Preferences include experience with 1) design software such as Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator and 2) video editing software such as FCPX, Motion. While this is not a necessary skill for the position, applicants with experience in this domain will have an edge on others.

Perform other related duties incidental to the work described herein.

Skills/Experience/Knowledge

Technical (required):

• Python (with webframe work experience)
• Javascript (with jQuery)
• iOS (Objective C)/
• Web development (HTML5, CSS3, web APIs)
• Experience with databases (preferably NoSQL MongoDB)

Preferred:

• Android (Java)
• VPS Services (Heroku)

Other:

• Curiosity and a passion for inquiry
• Experience working in a research environment
• Ability to adjust rapidly to evolving needs of multiple researchers and projects
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Ability to communicate effectively with people of varied technical backgrounds
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, as well as manage multiple collaborations and research projects at once
• Ability to meet strict deadlines and work in a timely manner, keeping researchers up to date with progress being made on the applications
• Experience preparing and maintaining form and procedure manuals to effect implementation and the continuing operation of apps
• Knowledge of data security and prior experience acting as an administrator for networked file systems

The above statements describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this classification. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and duties required of personnel so classified.

Minimum Qualifications

Education

Work requires a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics or computer-related field, or equivalent coursework or technical training.

Experience

Work requires one year of programming or analytical experience with knowledge of several computer languages, programs or systems OR AN EQUIVALENT COMBINATION OF RELEVANT EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE.

What is the Center for Advanced Hindsight?

The Center for Advanced Hindsight is Dan Ariely’s behavioral economics lab at Duke University. We are interested in how and why people make a wide range of decisions, and how certain forces influence our thoughts and behavior. Our research focuses on the faulty assumptions of rational decision making, and strives to unveil how people make decisions in the real world – all kinds of decisions, from what inspires us to work those extra hours, to how much we are willing to spend on black pearls, to what we choose to eat for lunch.

Broadly, our primary research interests include:

• Moral decisions
• Health decisions
• Financial decisions
• Social and environmental influences on behavior

What About Duke?

Duke has been named as a best place to work by several publications and organizations, including Carolina Parent, Computerworld, The Scientist, and the American Association of Retired Persons, among others. The organizations recognizing Duke represent a diverse range of interests, from family-friendly and preventive health to the needs of IT professionals and academic researchers.

Duke’s comprehensive benefits package includes paid time-off (vacation, holidays, sick leave), health, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, retirement, educational assistance, and support for professional development and training. As an employee of Duke University you would also enjoy numerous discounted services such as health club memberships, movie tickets, dining, and entertainment.

Environment

The CAH is a unique working environment, and has acquired a reputation for hosting activities like spontaneous pancake parties, snow cone shindigs, or a lab-wide Color Run. The space is filled with color and hanging chairs, a “Thinking and Dreaming” room, and the occasional art exhibit as a part of our Artistically Irrational series that bridges the gap between the worlds of Art and Science. The lab boasts an airborne remote-control shark, mini hydroponic garden, and the occasional pet sea creature. Not to mention onsite espresso and an ever-changing selection of scrumptious snacks. The work environment is flexible, always evolving, and moves at a pace that even the most highfalutin startups have a hard time keeping up with, and we embrace the momentum with an impassioned sort of grace. It’s not the lifestyle for everyone, but if this sounds appealing, then the CAH might just be the perfect place for you.

Our lab members are as diverse as our daytime activities, with backgrounds ranging from academia to advertising and business to software development. Our work is highly creative and collaborative, and we don’t hesitate to ask for help or to help our peers. And yes, we do walk around in our personalized lab coats that function purely as fashion accessories.

To apply for the position, visit http://www.hr.duke.edu/jobs/apply/ and view Requisition # 400770209 or click here to get to the post directly.

(All the rights of this illustration belong to our talented lab member M.R.Trower)

Before writing personal bonus checks to your employees this December, have a look at our paper — hot off the press! If you are hoping that a bonus would allow them to buy whatever they wish and as a result be happier at work and more productive, we have a better idea! Rather than giving your employees more personal bonuses, make a minor adjustment and offer them prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus to be spent on others.

Across three field experiments, we tested the efficacy of prosocial bonuses against the standard model of personal bonuses. We found that when companies gave their employees money to spend on charities or on their colleagues (as opposed to themselves), employees 1) reported increased job satisfaction and 2) performed notably better.

In one experiment, an Australian Bank gave some of their employees a charity voucher and encouraged them to spend it on a cause they personally cared about. Compared to their coworkers who didn’t receive a charity vouchers, bankers who redeemed the prosocial bonuses reported increased job satisfaction and were happier overall.

Next, we examined whether prosocial bonuses were still effective if they were spent on others people personally knew rather than on charities. We ran experiments in two very different settings – one with recreational dodge ball teams in Canada and another one with pharmaceutical sales teams in Belgium – where we encouraged spending on co-workers and teammates. In both cases, we gave cash to some members of each team to either spend on themselves (personal bonuses) or spend on their teammates (prosocial bonuses). We found that teams that received prosocial bonuses performed better than teams that received money to spend on themselves.

It is difficult to measure the return on investment of corporate social responsibility. With prosocial bonuses, however, we were able to measure the dollar impact on the bottom line. On sports teams, every $10 spent prosocially led to an 11% increase in winning percentage, whereas it led to a 2% decrease in winning when team members received personal bonuses. For the sales teams, every $10 spent prosocially earned an extra $52 for the firm.

Our results come at an important time. Job satisfaction is at a 20-year low in the U.S., and people are spending more and more time at work. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten. So, we suggest that you try something new this year: Shift the focus of the bonuses from the self to others and create a more altruistic, satisfying and productive workplace!

~Lalin Anik~

P.S. If you are interested in testing prosocial bonuses, please feel free to send a gift to lalin.anik@duke.edu

As you leave our lab and take a narrow walkway down to one of the main streets in Durham, you pass through a small parking lot and a few chain restaurants. Yesterday afternoon, that parking lot was packed tightly with a long line of patrons waiting to buy a $1 sub for Jimmy John’s “Customer Appreciation Day.”

If the crowd was any indication, the promotion was a success (although it’s hard to tell how “appreciated” the customers felt without distributing some surveys—maybe next time…). It was clear, however, that they were willing to wait an incredibly long time to get a cheap sub. And that might very well change where they get lunch in the future.

In standard economics, the way we decide to spend our money reflects how useful or enjoyable we expect a product or service to be. We pay five dollars for a sub because we expect to get five dollars of value from eating it, and so on. But findings in psychology and behavioral economics suggest that the choices we make can do more than simply reveal our preferences—they shape them, too.

One classic study by Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith showed the effect that actions can have on our preferences. Participants in their experiment performed a mind-numbing task and were asked to describe it to another person while pretending to have enjoyed it. But there was one crucial difference between two groups: They were paid either a low or high amount of money to do this. Compared to those who were well compensated, the participants who were paid a small amount of money enjoyed the experiment more and reported a higher likelihood of returning to perform a similar experiment.

Festinger and Carlsmith concluded that their low-paid participants experienced a dissonance between the amount of money they were paid and their own willingness to perform the task. And since they couldn’t take back their efforts, they justified their behavior by increasing their enjoyment of the task. Here, we could say quite a bit about what Festinger and Carlsmith called “cognitive dissonance,” but let’s instead focus on how this affected their participants’ later behavior.

When we look back on our past actions, we tend to ignore situational factors and assume instead that we made that decision for good reasons. This actually changes how we feel about those decisions later, and that can change our future behavior. This process, where we look to our past behaviors to guide our future decisions, is called self-herding. To provide a simple example, imagine that you got a particularly flattering evaluation last Friday at work. You were feeling pretty happy about this and decided to celebrate by inviting some co-workers to a bar for a drink. The next Friday, as you’re considering what to do that evening, you might look back on your past excursion and decide to do it again. You look to the past behavior (going out for drinks) rather than the situational factors (the glowing report) that led you to the behavior.

So the people waiting in a long line for a cheap sub that everyone seems excited about might look back tomorrow and like Jimmy John’s more than they otherwise would have. Though they might look herded to one another, standing in a line that stretches out the door and into the parking lot, it’s how they’re herded to themselves that matters in the long run.

~Vlad Chituc~

Read more:
Chapter 2 in Predictably Irrational and Chapter 10 in the Upside of Irrationality
Dan Ariely and Michael Norton (2007), “How Actions Create—Not Just Reveal—Preferences.” TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences. Vol. 12, No. 1: 13 – 16.

Time and time again, you hear students talk about how lonely graduate school can be. To fight the loneliness, graduate students often befriend each other, play board games together, go to trivia nights together, or yes even party together—only on weekends and always responsibly of course. Even though this makes graduate school less lonely, the research itself may remain a lonely enterprise.

Yet it doesn’t have to be: future professors, inventors, and intellectual powerhouses are residing on the desk across from you, why not take advantage of that?

On day one of graduate school I wished someone would have told me so many things (e.g. difference between theory-application, how run certain models) but most of all I wish someone would simply have told me: “Student peers are fundamentally important to your academic life.”

Of course, everyone knows you want to befriend and get along with the students in your department. However, unlike during your undergraduate studies where friendship is the ultimate goal, in graduate school so much more can occur. Graduate students are not just potential friends, they are potential colleagues, co-authors, discussion partners, support networks, and walking encyclopaedias of various literatures. Fellow students are the one of the biggest and most powerful resources in graduate school, yet we often overlook this fact.

No matter who your advisor is, he or she will not be around as much as your fellow students who are almost always there. They hear your ideas in class and lab, attend your conference presentations, talk at length with you over coffee and lunches, and see your ideas develop from day one. In many ways your peers often know your ideas, thought processes, passions, and weaknesses better than anyone else. This is especially true for students working with multiple advisors or switching between advisors.

Yet, often we simply don’t take advantage of our friendly fellow students. We don’t follow the example of the Psych Your Mind students who spend one lunch a week talking about ideas just amongst themselves. We don’t take the time to kick ideas back and forth, or just be someone’s sounding board. Instead, we stumble into advisor meetings will ill-prepared pitches, when a pre-conversation with a peer could have drastically improved them.

Recently, a group of students at a conference agreed to start a purposefully small and private online message board group, so they could communicate about important topics and questions. With this message board system, these students can get insight on complicated questions, methods, cites, and theories within an hour. A network of graduate students supporting each other can be at times more powerful than any individual meeting with a faculty member.

Lastly, even if we talk together or form networks, we don’t tend to co-author with each other. Remember last time you just couldn’t figure out the right stimuli, couldn’t handle the stress of a revision, and got writers block? Or remember that time you needed feedback from your advisor, but the advisor was in a conference in Spain? That’s when a student co-author would have saved you.

Professor Gavan Fitzsimons at Duke University often gets praised for one interesting talent: he’s good at putting graduate students together and building research teams. He knows how powerful a network of graduate students, senior professors, and often also young professors can be and his CV is a testimony of that.

There’s a belief in Improv Comedy that when two performers get on stage and make up a scene together, the performers create something that is greater than either performer would have created own their own. Improv performers believe that putting two passionate people together creates true greatness as they positively build upon one another’s ideas. Whether it is as co-authors, giving feedback on manuscripts, or just chatting about research over lunch, togetherness is a path to greater things.

~Troy Campbell~

Originally posted on InDecision Blog.

Analyst Programmer, Center for Advanced Hindsight

The Center for Advanced Hindsight is currently seeking a programmer to join our team at Duke University to develop and support a growing collection of IT tools for collecting and analyzing research data, as well as developing software that will be marketed and released to a public audience. In addition to the creation and maintenance of software, the position will provide basic IT consulting for lab members.

This position will help build and maintain a suite of fun and innovative web and mobile applications to aid in the research of helping people make better moral, financial, and health decisions. Among the projects already built is an internal iPad app that helps the Center and the Center’s collaborators around the world run new and exciting experiments on the go. While some applications will only be used internally (and the programming focus will be on functionality), others will be distributed to the public and will therefore require a greater focus on interface design and consumer usability.

Overall, the position will be responsible for programming and maintenance of applications, as well as IT support for the following:

– survey/data collection instrument design
– survey implementation across multiple mobile platforms (e.g. Android and iOS, phones and tablets)
– field-based direct data collection and quality control
– secure device and cloud server storage
– secure transmission of data using mobile platforms

To see full job description or to apply, please visit the Duke Human Resources site: http://www.hr.duke.edu/jobs/main.html and search for Req # 400718356.

Do you remember Segway, that odd, upright, (and sometimes dangerous) electric scooter?  Pundits once predicted the Segway would revolutionize personal transportation and reduce American oil dependency. As it turns out, these days, it is used either by corny tour groups in large cities or it’s been relegated to the object of sight gags and physical comedy, from “Arrested Development” to “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

After examining Google’s latest product, Google Glass, it is hard not to question whether it is ready for the market. With a design reminiscent of the “Terminator” films and a preliminary price tag of $1,500, Glass risks being the biggest flop since Segway if Google doesn’t learn from Segway’s mistakes.

The Segway failed, not because of poor engineering, but because of poor attention to consumer psychology. Similarly, Google Glass might be functional from an engineering point of view, but does it have the form necessary to generating mass-market appeal? To this point, it looks like the tech giant is trying to avoid these “Segway barriers,” but as consumer psychologists, we have few suggestions for Google.

Psychological principles that suggest why Google may succeed

1. Form and function combined create positive feelings for consumers.

Segway had functionality, but its form lacked elegance. As a result, Segway was unable to shed its awkward image. In its current form, Glass is more like the nerdy Segway than the sleek iPhone. Google seems to be making efforts to streamline, or “de-geek,” its new product by hiring experts to redesign it.

Until Google is ready to launch a redesigned Glass, the company’s ad campaigns center on attractive models. This technique invites consumers to associate Glass with the positive feelings evoked when we look at attractive people.

2. The more effort we put into acquiring a product, the more we tend to value and enjoy that product.

To determine who would test the first version of Glass, Google held the “Glass Explorer” competition, in which applicants submitted Twitter entries with the hashtag, “#ifihadglass”. Winners were given the “privilege” to buy Glass for $1,500. By participating in the contest, consumers became mentally and emotionally invested in Glass. This led to “effort justification,” meaning that those who expend more effort to get the product and then pay for it come to value it more.

As a bonus for Google, all this effort demonstrates to interested observers that Glass is valuable.  This type of user exclusivity plays on scarcity, a psychological hot button that ultimately makes Glass more desirable.

How Google can improve its marketing strategy for Glass

Even with the efforts Google has already undertaken to ensure that Glass won’t flop, we offer a few further suggestions to help guarantee a successful launch.

1. Create advertising campaigns that appeal broadly to normal people.

So far, marketing for Glass seems to center on young hipster techies in urban environments, but if Glass is going to succeed, Google needs to make ads that depict average people doing normal things. Granted, Google may be working to develop Glass’s “cool factor” before proving its functionality, but they will need to focus on the average consumer if Glass is going to sell big.

2. Get people to try on Glass.

If people see themselves using a product, they are more likely to buy it. There are also lingering questions about Glass that Google must address. How should consumers use the product? Is Glass something we wear all the time? What if we already wear glasses? Glass doesn’t make immediate sense in most of our lives: do we really need another gadget, given the proliferation of tablet computers and smartphones? To help consumers understand its functions and purposes, Google should have people try on Glass. Past research shows that consumers are more likely to buy products when they have the opportunity to test them. Testing a product may not improve its “cool factor,” but it certainly helps us imagine using the product in real life.

CONCLUSION:

Google may be playing a long-term game with Glass, focusing on engineering first, followed by coolness, before setting their sights on breaking into other markets – something Apple did before it exploded. Even if this is their strategy, Google should make sure to foreground the psychology of design. Otherwise Glass will go the way of the Segway, at medium speed into closet of cobwebs or, worse yet, end up used primarily by groups of ironic hipsters going on “urban tours.”

~Rachel Anderson and Troy Campbell~

Every year, March Madness gives us an underdog story and millions flock to a momentary allegiance with a college they could not locate on a map. In the past it has been George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth University and Butler, and this year we eagerly await a new momentary hero.

So why do we love underdogs?

Well, no matter whether you are Republican or Democratic, work for Microsoft or Apple, or are a janitor or CEO, you most likely see yourself as somewhat of an underdog.

In America, especially compared to other countries, the underdog narrative is an honorable and respectable narrative. From the American patriots in 1776 to the George Mason Patriots in 2006, the Cinderella story, as it is specifically called in the NCAA tournament, has always been an attractive one.

So with underdogs you have 1) a narrative people like and 2) a narrative people see themselves in. Is it any wonder people want to cheer for underdogs? It’s like cheering for yourself.

These serve to energize us with the hope that people like ourselves can do anything. People like to believe that those above us aren’t that great after all, and that people like us are just as good, if not better than the people in power.

In fact, the narrative is so strong that Neeru Paharia, of the Harvard Business School, and colleagues named a psychological effect after it, simply “the underdog effect.” They found that companies gain goodwill from consumers when companies present themselves as a group that has overcame disadvantages through sheer determination. This effect was stronger for people who personally related with the narrative and stronger in cultures (e.g., America) where the narrative was more prevalent.

This narrative dominates American culture not only in sports but in all other popular media. From Luke Skywalker to Cinderella, Americans crave stories about underdogs. Even the more privileged characters in storylines, such as the elite James Bond or billionaire Tony Stark, end up in situations where they must overcome disadvantages through sheer determination.

Even politicians are forced to conform to the narrative, regardless of reality. This is a challenge that proved difficult for Mitt Romney and may have greatly have hurt his campaign.

The underdog narrative doesn’t only sell fiction, politics and sports, it also sells nonfiction books in my field of social science. The nearly unparalleled success of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” owes a lot of that success to the intuitive appeal of his “10,000 hours doctrine.” Gladwell concludes that if someone spends 10,000 hours at something they can become an expert, implying to readers (who don’t carefully read Gladwell’s other more nuanced chapters) that they can make it just by trying hard.

Hip Hop artist Macklemore of the “Thrift Shop” fame even opens his chart-topping first album with a song called “Ten Thousand Hours.” He directly references Gladwell’s name in the song, chants “Ten thousand hours, felt like thousands hands, they carry me,” and then raps “Take that system!”

Oddly enough, many political pundits on both sides of the spectrum have argued (mostly for political reasons) that such a dream is fading in America. But psychological research shows that when beliefs we value are threatened, we try to find ways to defend such beliefs and keep the belief alive. Believing that an underdog will win in Atlanta this year might be a good way to keep alive that wonderful American underdog dream.

This article was originally published in the Providence Journal and can be read here.

~Troy Campbell~