Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

I manage a small company, and I want to give my employees a gift that will bring them joy during these difficult times. Any suggestions?

—Maya 

I would suggest gifts that provide a fun experience while fostering a feeling of connection, which we all need nowadays. One option would be to give people a gift card for a takeout meal from their favorite restaurant. That would give your employees a treat and allow them to support a local business they care about.

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Dear Dan,

I live in New Zealand, where we are currently almost Covid-19-free. The border is closed except for New Zealand citizens coming back home, and they have to spend two weeks in isolation in a designated quarantine hotel. Recently, there have been several big news stories about returnees who broke quarantine to go to a supermarket or a liquor store, potentially exposing dozens of people to the virus. What makes people think it’s OK to flout the rules like this?

—David 

Getting people to follow safety protocols during the pandemic is a good example of the economic problem known as the tragedy of the commons. If everyone follows the rules, the whole community benefits. But if one person starts to bend the rules for their own advantage, others will follow suit, until the system falls apart and everyone is worse off. The common danger we’re all in should be an opportunity to increase cooperation and social cohesion, not just in New Zealand but everywhere.

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Hi, Dan.

As a teacher, I’ve been closely following the debate over whether to reopen schools. My school district closed in March when there were just a handful of cases in the state. Now we have thousands of cases, but the schools are planning to reopen in the fall. Why have people’s perceptions of Covid-19 risk changed so much in the last few months?

—Ashe 

Deciding whether to reopen schools involves balancing many factors—not just the quality of remote versus in-person instruction but student’s need for school lunches and the economic burden of child care on working parents. Our perception of risk, however, has been affected over the last five months by what psychologists call habituation. When Covid-19 began to spread, the unknown nature of the virus and the rapid increase in hospitalizations and deaths created widespread fear, making people very unwilling to take risks.

That level of alarm is hard to sustain. In general, people adapt to new realities surprisingly quickly. The danger of Covid-19 hasn’t gone away—in fact, in many places it’s worse than ever—but we soon stop paying as much attention to frightening statistics and headlines. We may start lowering our guard in small ways—forgetting to wear a mask or leaving our “bubble” to visit a parent or friend. When it comes to schools, the benefits of reopening now feel bigger to many people than the dangers, simply because we’ve gotten used to living in a risky environment.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

My workplace hosts weekly virtual happy hours over Zoom. It’s a nice idea in principle, but the meetings have been dull and awkward—we usually just end up talking about the latest coronavirus news. Is there a way to encourage better, deeper conversations?

—Josh 

The problem isn’t that your co-workers are unusually boring; rather, it’s the social norms for your meetings. Research has found that people usually gravitate toward small talk even when they crave connection because sharing important things about ourselves can be socially risky. Talking about unimportant things carries zero risk, but it also doesn’t offer much personal or social benefit.

I was part of a team of researchers working on how to foster deeper connections, and we designed an experiment involving 300 people at a networking event for financial advisers. Some of the participants were asked to socialize as they usually do, while others were given conversation cards with probing questions to ask, like “If you had to change one big decision you’ve made, what would it be?” or “What don’t you tell people on a first date?”

The results showed that those who asked deeper questions had more meaningful discussions. You could try something similar in your Zoom happy hours by giving everyone a question to ask their colleagues. To get started, take a look at psychologist Arthur Aron’s list of 36 “closeness-generating” questions, such as “Would you like to be famous? In what way?” and “What would constitute a perfect day for you?”

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Dear Dan,

I’m a professor at a state university where the majority of the student body is white, even though our state is much more diverse. Does behavioral science offer any tools for increasing minority enrollment?

—Dylan 

Many institutions are trying to fight racial bias with specialized training for employees. But training in any subject seldom solves the real problem, since there’s a big gap between knowing the right thing to do and actually doing it. Instead, try looking at the problem from the point of view of prospective applicants, to help you understand what’s discouraging minority students from applying and enrolling.

This involves what my lab calls “behavioral mapping.” Imagine that you are a high-school senior and create a detailed map of every decision and task that’s involved in the application process: choosing to apply, taking tests, filling in forms, paying fees, visiting campus and so on. This process will help you identify obstacles that keep students out even before they get to the admissions committee. To achieve racial equity, removing structural barriers is just as important as fighting explicit bias.

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Dear Dan,

What is something that has surprised you as you’ve adjusted to life in the pandemic?

—Nia 

The biggest change in my routine has to do with staying home all the time. I used to travel a few times a week, and I haven’t been on a plane since early March. The isolation is challenging, but having a consistent home environment has helped me reinforce good habits, like eating better and going to bed earlier. I already knew the research about how a stable environment is good for establishing routines, but now that I’m experiencing it myself I’m surprised to see what a big difference it makes.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

I used to buy coffee every day on my way to the office, but for the last three months I’ve been making it at home. Now I’m commuting again, but I find I don’t miss the coffee shop, and I’ve stopped going. Do you think the habits people formed during the lockdown are going to last?

—Nancy 

The interruption of everyday life has been an experiment showing that habits aren’t just desires; they’re behaviors cued by reminders in our environment. When we change the way we interact with our environment, a lot of seemingly ingrained habits fade away. Some of them are things we’re better off without, like thoughtless consumption and spending, but a lot of people are also having trouble maintaining good habits, like eating well, sleeping regularly and staying in touch with friends. Re-establishing those habits is going to take a conscious decision, but I believe that once we return to our familiar environments and activities, most people will return to their old routines—including buying coffee on the way to work.

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Dear Dan,

I’ve been working from home since the pandemic began, and by now I feel like I’m in work mode all the time. Since my living room is my office, there’s always a temptation to answer one more email or work on one more project, even at night and on the weekend. How can I restore some kind of work/life balance?

—Jordan 

In ordinary times, it’s easier to separate work and life because they happen in different places. Now that home and office are the same for many people, one way to create a psychological distance between them is through an artificial commute—an idea that Nina Bartmann, a senior researcher in my lab at Duke, has written about for the website of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. By taking a 20-minute walk at the start and end of your workday, you signal your brain when you are shifting into work mode and when you are leaving it behind. Other techniques include changing into work clothes when you’re at your desk, moving your work station to a dedicated room and shutting down your computer at a designated time each day.

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Dear Dan,

It’s always been my plan to get an advanced degree, and this spring I was accepted into graduate school. But with the pandemic causing so much uncertainty, I’m starting to wonder if I should make such a long-term commitment. Does it make sense to re-evaluate my plans or should I stick to them?

—Paul 

Research on how people make decisions shows that we usually don’t stop to think about our actions; we make choices automatically rather than deliberately. From this perspective, the current uncertainty might be a gift. People have a chance to reflect on their life plan and ask if it’s still what they really want, whether that means starting a family, buying a home or choosing a career. To help you decide about graduate school, try writing down a detailed blueprint for what you want your life to look like when the pandemic is over. That will help you clarify what steps you can take now to reach your goal.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

I know that because of the coronavirus we are supposed to stop shaking hands. But when I meet someone I find myself doing it anyway, mainly because it would be awkward to suggest a different form of greeting. Any suggestions?

—Miguel 

When you’ve just met someone, there’s no time for a discussion about the coronavirus before you shake hands, and you don’t want to imply that you suspect the other person might be infected. What we need now is a substitute—something we can all do without thinking too much about it or causing offense.
During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the Nigerian government discouraged handshaking to reduce the spread of the disease. Instead, they introduced the “Ebola handshake,” where people bend their arms and bump elbows. This approach recognized that it’s not enough to tell people what not to do; you also have to give them an alternative.

Now that technique is catching on in the U.S. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence was photographed greeting Washington Gov. Jay Inslee by bumping elbows. A video from Wuhan, where the pandemic originated, shows another approach: Two men say hello by tapping their feet together, a move dubbed “the Wuhan Shake.” If we adopt one of these new techniques in the U.S., however, let’s not call it the “coronavirus handshake,” because we might want to have it in store for future viruses as well.

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Dear Dan,

My son is a high-school senior who frequently misses the bus. Every morning I try to wake him up several times, but I often can’t get him out the door on time. When he misses the bus and I have to drive him to school, I end up reprimanding him, which makes him angry. How can we solve this problem?

—Alice 

People learn behaviors by making associations, either consciously or subconsciously, between an action and a response. Even though you’re trying to help your son, your response when he oversleeps reinforces his bad behavior. Every time you wake him up and drive him to school, he is learning that he has a viable backup if he ignores his alarm clock. My recommendation is to stop helping him get to school on time: Don’t wake him up and don’t offer to drive him. After a few painful failures, he should learn that he needs to go to bed earlier and respond more diligently to his alarm clock.

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Dear Dan,

I’m a committed vegan, but whenever I tell people they tend to have a negative reaction. Is there something about veganism that turns people off?

—David 

A recent study by Vlad Chituc, a doctoral student in psychology at Yale, found that people tend to dislike vegans because they give the impression of thinking that they are morally superior. Vegans can defuse this reaction, however, if they say they are avoiding animal products for health reasons rather than ethical ones. So next time the subject comes up with a new acquaintance, try emphasizing this aspect of your diet, at least to begin with.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

I shop at two different grocery stores. One charges a nickel for paper bags, while the other gives me a nickel when I bring my own bag. Which approach is more likely to reduce paper-bag use?

—Paul 

The general question you’re raising is whether punishment or reward is better at motivating us to change our behavior. Punishments are very powerful for motivating people to do something that they only have to do once—for example, installing a smoke alarm in their house or immunizing their children.

But when it comes to repeated behaviors, positive rewards are more effective. In a study conducted in a New York hospital in 2011, researchers found that when physicians were given positive feedback for washing their hands regularly, compliance with the hospital’s handwashing policy rose from 10% to 90%. I suspect that the same principle would hold here: Offering shoppers a credit for bringing their own bag should yield better results.

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Dear Dan,

Religion is supposed to make people behave better, but do more religious societies actually have less unethical behavior and crime?

—Chad 

I wish it was that simple. Research suggests that religion can play an important role in fostering ethical behavior, but its effects aren’t consistent across the board. A recent paper in the journal Psychological Science examined crime data from 1945 to 2010 for over 170 countries and found that as religious affiliation went down, homicide rates tended to go up—but only in areas with relatively low aggregate intelligence scores. How causation works among these variables isn’t clear, but I suspect that areas with higher intelligence scores are more likely to have institutions such as schools and community organizations that help to foster ethical behavior. So while religion isn’t the only factor, some kind of strong social institutions are crucially important for curbing our worst impulses.

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Hi, Dan.

We all know that we’re going to die one day, but most people don’t prepare wills or make guardianship plans for their children. Is there a way to motivate people to take estate planning seriously?

—Shani 

Making a will forces us think about an event that we don’t want to imagine, to make complex decisions we prefer not to deal with, and to plan for something that feels very far away. All these factors encourage us to procrastinate. But while we experience painful feelings when we think about estate planning, the pain for our survivors is much larger if we don’t make a will.

My research lab at Duke works with a startup called GivingDocs that tries to overcome these obstacles. Before making a will, it asks people to think about the legacy they want to leave behind and the causes they care about, then helps them to plan bequests to the charities that matter to them. This general approach—combining a painful act with distant results, like creating a will, with something that’s immediately meaningful, like donating to charity—is a good way to get people to overcome their tendency to procrastinate.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Hi, Dan.

I offered to purchase a computer as a gift for a close relative, and I asked him to pick out the one he wanted. But he simply can’t make a choice. He keeps comparing different models and researching all the available features, even though I’m sure he will never use most of them. How can I help him to make a decision?

—Stanley 

Choice paralysis, or what’s sometimes called “paralysis by analysis,” is a common problem. Some famous experiments in behavioral science have shown that making decisions is harder when you have too many options and too much information. To force your relative to limit his search, tell him that the two of you will sit down together and go shopping online for two hours; then you’ll buy the best computer you’ve found in that time. Using firm deadlines is a good way to combat our indecisive nature.

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Dear Dan,

I use a budgeting app to set monthly spending goals for each category of expense, but every month I find that I’ve gone over my limit in multiple categories. Are budgeting apps just a waste of time?

—Anthony 

The struggle that you are experiencing is not between you and your app but between your emotional self, which wants to get things now, and your cognitive self, which wants you to plan for a better future. My guess is that you’d be in an even worse situation without the app.

Budgeting isn’t effective if you set a spending goal and then don’t think about it again until the end of the month. Instead, try using the app to analyze your spending every other day. That way, when you find yourself spending too much, you’ll be able to adjust your behavior to stay on track for your monthly goal, rather than discovering you’ve overspent only when it’s too late to do anything about it.

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Dear Dan,

Our daughter attends a very expensive private university, where I recently attended an event. There were lots of freebies for us to take, including fancy snacks and notebooks with the university logo. I was excited to get these items, but of course they aren’t really free since we pay so much in tuition.

I thought about this last week when my tennis team was playing a match at a different club, and we were asked to pay a $10 fee to use the facilities. This felt annoying and unfair, even though I spend a lot more than that on my tennis hobby overall. Why did I get so excited about those “free” items and so angry about this small expense, when neither of them really matters in the big picture?

—Juliet 

The problem is that we tend to think about each of our expenses separately, rather than seeing them in their overall context. This is the source of many of our irrational financial decisions and emotions—whether it’s paying high fees to money managers who don’t justify the cost, or paying Amazon an annual fee for “free” shipping or getting annoyed when the supermarket starts charging a nickel for a plastic bag. It’s not easy to think clearly about each small expense in terms of our total financial situation, but if you can, you will be able to make better decisions about money.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

My partner and I are students, and we have very different approaches to dealing with money. My policy is to spend less than I earn and invest my savings for the long term. But my partner feels that since we will both be earning more money after we graduate, we should spend freely now and enjoy the moment. Is there any way to avoid fighting about this issue?

—Mathieu 

The bad news is that our preferences about spending and saving can be difficult to change. That’s why most divorced couples name finances as one of the major reasons for their split. The best way to avoid that fate is to recognize that you and your partner can’t change each other. Instead, you should minimize areas of conflict.

Try setting up a joint bank account in which you can both deposit your paychecks. Use that account to pay shared expenses such as rent and utilities. In addition, you should each have individual accounts for discretionary spending, into which you can transfer a fixed amount from your joint account every month. That money can be used for spending or saving as you see fit. You may still disagree, but this way you’ll only be arguing about the smaller amounts in your individual accounts, which limits the size of the problem. And remember, the goal of money is to buy happiness. If you keep fighting about it, what’s the point?

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Dear Dan,

I work for a tech company as a software engineer. Our bonuses are tied to quarterly evaluations, which means that managers are much more likely to reward short-term gains than ideas that take a year to generate results. Since the introduction of this bonus structure, I’ve been concentrating much more on short-term projects with visible results. Am I really doing the right thing for the company, or am I just gaming the system to get paid more?

—Justin 

There’s no question about it: Your strategy is designed to make more money for you personally, but it will hurt the company in the long term. When the company created this bonus structure, they probably thought it made sense, because short-term results are easier to measure. But it is counterproductive if employees become less motivated to take on riskier, more ambitious projects with potentially higher payoffs. It’s hard to ignore a bad incentive structure, so if I were you I would try to convince management to change it and measure the things that matter, even if they are complex or hard to quantify.

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Hi, Dan.

Do you think New Year’s resolutions have any value, given that most people don’t keep them?

—Molly 

I do, but they’re just a start. To get a resolution to stick, we need to make the desired behavior automatic. For instance, if you want to exercise more, build a very simple habit: Every Tuesday at 5 p.m., go to a group exercise class after work. Ideally it will be something you find enjoyable and rewarding, so that the habit is more likely to stick. The more you repeat a behavior in the same context at the same time, the more automatic it will become and the less you’ll have to rely on willpower. For a good introduction to the research on this topic, I recommend Wendy Wood’s recent book, “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes that Stick.”

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

One of my credit cards bears the words “member since 1989.” The truth is that I haven’t used this card in years, even though I pay a $95 annual fee for it. But I can’t seem to bring myself to cancel it, simply because of that “member since 1989”! It feels like I would be giving up a status I’ve been building for 30 years. Why is it so hard for me to make what is clearly the rational financial decision?

—Arielle 

You’re suffering from what economists call the “sunk cost fallacy.” To understand how this works, imagine you have spent 15 hours writing a new book, and you have 50 more hours to put in before you’re finished. Then you learn that someone else’s book on the exact same subject will be coming out next week. Should you keep working on your book for another 50 hours? Most people would say no—why spend so much time on a project that is unlikely to be successful?

But now imagine that instead of 15 hours, you have invested 1,500 hours in writing your book. In that case, would you put in another 50 hours to get it done? Now most people would say yes—if you’ve already spent 1,500 hours on something, why not put in the last 50 to finish it?

In both cases you are being asked to make the same amount of effort for the same doubtful result. But when you’ve invested a lot of time—or a lot of money—it’s hard to make the rational decision to write off your sunk cost and shift your resources to something better.
You’re facing a similar problem when it comes to your credit card. To make the decision clearer, ask yourself if you would keep paying for the card if it only said “member since 2019.” If your answer is yes, then keep it; if the answer is no, it’s clear that you are a victim of the sunk cost fallacy and you should cancel the card now, before that cost gets even bigger.

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Hi Dan,

At least once a day, someone in my office sends an email to the whole company complaining about some small issue: Someone took the wrong lunch from the refrigerator, or someone drank the last of the coffee and didn’t make a new pot. I find it really annoying. Is there a way to get people to complain less?

—George 

It seems like it should be simple to convince people to be more patient and polite. But the truth is that it’s much easier to change your own attitude than it is to change the behavior of your co-workers. One approach would be to make a game out of it: Every Monday, make a prediction about how many of these complaints will come your way that week. If your prediction is correct, reward yourself with some small indulgence. That way, you can think about the complaints not just as annoyances but as a way to earn a reward.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Hi Dan,

I have a hard time watching my favorite football team on TV because I get so upset when they are behind, and when they lose I’m really miserable. Is there a way for me to enjoy the game without taking the result so seriously?

—Brian 

One option is to remove the element of surprise by recording the game and having someone tell you the final score before you watch. That way, you will feel less emotionally invested in the outcome and you’ll be able to enjoy the game more for its own sake.

Another approach is to pick a treat that you enjoy—let’s say chocolate—and have some only if your team loses. This would make the loss bittersweet, since you would offset the unhappiness of losing with the pleasure of the chocolate.

Still, as with all kinds of love, loving a team will inevitably bring occasional heartbreak. The best way to deal with it is by learning to appreciate that emotional complexity, with all the good and bad feelings involved.

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Dear Dan,

My partner thinks it’s better to arrive at the airport hours early to avoid feeling anxious about missing our flight. But I would rather put that time to good use and minimize the hours spent waiting aimlessly at the gate. What’s a good rule of thumb for travel planning?

—Emma 

The key here is your partner’s anxiety. If you were simply trying to calculate the most efficient way to use your own time, you would look at how much time you would waste waiting at the airport (discounted by the useful things you can do there, like catching up on email or reading a book) and compare it with how much time you would lose if you missed your flight. Then you could come up with an optimal solution for yourself.

But once you start considering your partner’s feelings of anxiety, you are in the irrational domain of emotions, which are harder to calculate. Try to figure out how severe your significant other’s anxiety is and how long it lasts. If he is highly anxious for, say, 48 hours before the flight, it would be worthwhile to agree to arrive at the airport a few hours early to eliminate his unhappiness. In general, we need to focus not just on how to use our own time efficiently but on what we can do to make our loved ones happy, rational or not.

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Dear Dan,

I spent half a day wrapping Christmas gifts for my family this year. Is it really worth my time?

—Jessica 

Even though it’s time-consuming, wrapping gifts is worthwhile since it makes the recipients enjoy them more, according to a 1992 study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. The effect holds even when the wrap is transparent and the recipient can see what’s inside. That’s because wrapping slows down the process of opening the gift, which helps us pay closer attention to the experience. Unwrapping gifts is like the ritual of drinking wine: Swirling it in the glass, looking at it and smelling it all slow things down so that we can focus on the pleasure ahead.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

People in my office drink a lot of coffee, which means a lot of mugs pile up in the sink. What happens is that one person leaves a dirty mug, and the next person to use the kitchen doesn’t want to clean that mug along with their own, so they leave theirs in the sink as well. Soon the sink is overflowing with these dirty dishes, and no one wants to take the time to wash all of them. If everyone just washed their own mug there wouldn’t be a problem, but what can we do to enforce this rule?

—Oran 

As you observed, the heart of the problem is the first mug: If someone observes a dirty dish in the sink, they are less likely to wash their own, and so the problem is compounded over time. In my lab at Duke University we had the same issue, and we tried two different solutions. First, I put a picture of myself above the sink, looking directly into peoples’ eyes, with the message “Please don’t leave your dish in the sink.” This was meant to remind people of the importance of the rule, but while it helped a little, it didn’t eliminate the problem. Our next step was to issue everyone in the office a mug with their name written on it, so that it would be obvious who was responsible for leaving a dirty mug in the sink. The threat of being publicly embarrassed managed to solve the problem almost completely.

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Dear Dan,

When I’m using the urinal in a public bathroom, it seems to me that I finish much faster when I’m alone than when someone is standing at the urinal next to me. Do you think this is a real phenomenon, or does it just feel that way because I’m more self-conscious when someone else is nearby?

—Joe 

I once conducted an experiment on this subject on the MIT campus, in which a research assistant would enter a public men’s room alongside unsuspecting students. Sometimes he would use a urinal right next to a student, while other times he would leave a free urinal between them. We found that when men have someone using the urinal next to them, it takes them longer to start urinating, but once they start they finish faster, as if they’re trying to get it over with and leave quickly. So you’re not imagining it: Being observed in the bathroom does make the experience more stressful.

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Dear Dan,

Recently I’ve been bombarded with requests for donations from various charities and political groups. Is it better to donate larger amounts of money to a few causes or smaller amounts to many?

—Barbara 

There are many ways to define “better,” but if you’re asking what’s better for you personally, I would recommend making smaller, more frequent donations. Every time we help others, even a small amount, we get a boost of positive emotion, so you would enjoy this benefit more often. And because it’s psychologically harder to part with large amounts of money, you will enjoy making small donations more, which means you’re more likely to make giving into a habit.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal.