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,

For some time now, I’ve been proposing different experiments at my company—experiments with the prices we charge, what we pay employees and the way we treat customers who call to complain. But the experimental approach that seems so successful for science bumps into substantial resistance within my company. Any ideas about how to make experiments more palatable in the business world?

—Darren 

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Dear Dan,

I’m a philosophy professor, teaching metaphysics and philosophy of language. What’s the best policy for penalizing students who hand in coursework late, with an eye on preparing them for the world of work?

—Andrew 

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Dear Dan,

I’m a server in a New York City restaurant in New York, and I want diners to trust my recommendations and leave me larger tips. Any advice?

—Robert 

As soon as you hand them the menu, tell them that you strongly recommend they avoid the branzino special (or any other very expensive dish). By demonstrating that you’re willing to steer them away from a pricey entrée, they’re more likely to think that you truly care about them, trust your advice and tip you more.

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,

I use Uber more and more these days, but I feel bad about using it when they slap on surge pricing rates, as they seem increasingly prone to do. Even with the surge rates, Uber is often cheaper than taxis—so why the mixed emotions?

—Wendy 

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Dear Dan,

My partner and I make a reasonable income, and we’ve been able to save some money over the years. We can afford to move to a more expensive neighborhood, but we aren’t sure if this is the right way to spend our money. What do you say?

—Paul 

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Dear Dan,

What’s the best way to improve the quality of marriages?

—Maayan 

The No. 1 enemy of relationships is being taken for granted. So I would set up marriages to expire automatically every five years and be renewable only if both parties opt in for another five-year period. Sure, this setup would mean that more people separate (you asked about the quality of marriages, not their longevity). But spouses would have to think more carefully about their partners, take them less for granted and thereby strengthen their relationships.

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,

Why do I feel so good when I buy something that is on discount—or, better yet, on sale?

—Sarah 

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Dear Dan,

As 2015 comes to an end, I want to start saving for my retirement more seriously. Could any tricks help me to move the saving needle?

—Teo 

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Dear Dan,

What kinds of New Year’s resolutions are we most likely to keep?

—Elizabeth 

Probably vows like, “Drink more and better wine.” More seriously, the resolutions that are most likely to work guard us from feeling like failures. When we set up a rigid goal and miss, we are likely to tell ourselves, “I failed, so what the hell—now I can go wild.” On the other hand, when a single failure is just a minor disappointment rather than a badge of shame, we can dig in and keep trying. So this year, plan your resolutions with some appreciation of the likelihood that you’ll occasionally fall short.

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,

I recently saw an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” in which one of the characters says, “Nothing good ever happens after 2 a.m.” I totally agree. But why? Does the dark make us misbehave, or is it something else? How can we stay safe and responsible in the wee hours?

—Aaron 

You’re probably right that bad things are more likely to happen after 2 a.m. During the day, we face many temptations, and we overpower them with self-control.

But that control is like a muscle, and it gets tired from repeated use—not physical exhaustion but a mental fatigue that comes from making responsible, restrained choices over and over.

So when night falls, we can simply be too tired to keep being good and restrained—leaving us ready to fail.

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Dear Dan,

I’m a high-school science teacher and a dean. We’ve had to discipline a number of students for cheating or plagiarism. Under our “two strikes and you’re out” policy, this puts them on the verge of getting kicked out of school after one infraction. The students were remorseful and confident that they would never again find themselves ripping off documents or copying papers—but then many of them cheated again. How can we better equip them to avoid such pitfalls?

—Morgan

It turns out that the fear of being caught doesn’t do much to deter crime in general. Even states that have the death penalty don’t report any noticeable difference in crime rates compared with those that don’t, according to a 2012 report by the National Research Council of the National Academies.

California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law was designed to take repeat criminals off the streets and deter offenders from repeated crimes. The theory was that if you knew that a third strike carried an especially harsh penalty, you would be deterred from further crimes.

But “three strikes and you’re out” didn’t seem to have a big effect on crime rates, according to a March 2000 study by James Austin and colleagues. And if “three strikes” didn’t work for crime, it’s unlikely to work for academic misdeeds.

We need to look for more effective approaches. Ultimately, what often stops us isn’t the fear of punishment but our own sense of right and wrong.

So you need to develop your students’ moral compasses. Maybe you should spend as much time on ethics as you do on math and history. After all, when they leave school, they’ll start applying their morals (whatever they are) to the world we share.

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Dear Dan,

On a recent business trip to San Francisco, I showed up early for a meeting, so I went to wait in a coffee shop. A cup of coffee was $8, and it was full of young people. Don’t they have anything better to do with their money? Don’t they have jobs? Don’t they find it morally reprehensible to spend more than the hourly minimum wage on a cup of coffee?

—Maria 

I feel the same way. Still, it is all relative: If the liquid in question was wine, at just $8 a glass, we might not feel so offended. Maybe we need to be a bit less prejudiced against coffee.

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,

Is it smart to fire someone for failing? We often hear about politicians, generals and executives who blow it and then lose their jobs, but how can anyone gain experience if failure means their dismissal?

—Danny 

This problem is worse than you might think. Organizations that don’t tolerate failure not only stop their employees from learning from their mistakes but also create a risk-averse culture that fears trying anything new. A related problem is that organizations generally reward (and punish) people based on the outcomes of their decisions, not on the quality of their decisions. In general, you’d hope that good decisions would lead to good outcomes, but that causal link rests on probabilities, not certainties—so reward and punishment are often misapplied. Imagine, for example, the manager of a chain of seafood restaurants who invested in five new branches along the Gulf Coast—six months before the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The chain lost money, its share value plummeted, and the manager got sacked. But should he have been? What if the manager had meticulously analyzed the market and made the best decision given the information available at the time? Should the company have punished him—or rewarded him for making a sensible, thorough decision? Obviously, we should reward and retain people who know how to make good decisions, but most of the time, we just reward good outcomes. As long as organizations behave this way, we will be stuck with conservative, risk-avoiding behavior, and we will keep firing some of the wrong people.

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Dear Dan,

My son wants a Nerf football. I found a real bargain online—just $2.50 on Amazon, but with a $7.50 shipping charge. The combined price of $10 is a really good deal, but paying three times as much for shipping as for the product itself seems like a rip-off. I know that what really matters is the total amount paid, but I somehow feel that the cost of delivery ought to matter too. Am I being irrational?

—Fay 

This is exactly why Amazon introduced Amazon Prime back in 2005. For only $99 a year, you get “free” shipping on your orders.  Of course, the shipping isn’t really free, but it gives you the feeling that you aren’t paying for it. One other clever aspect of Amazon Prime is that once you have paid for it, every additional purchase on Amazon further amortizes your investment, thereby helping you further justify your initial decision.

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Dear Dan,

A friend of mine and her husband live in an apartment building, and their upstairs neighbors often have noisy sex between 3 and 8 a.m. My friend’s husband has no problem sleeping through the raucous romping, but my friend is being woken up every night. Should she let her neighbors know that their early morning love sessions aren’t as private as they might think (without embarrassing them or herself) so she can get her beauty sleep again?

—Kim

Maybe she could start with a compliment, explain the problem and offer a solution. How about, “I’m very impressed with your level of energy during the early hours of the day. How do you stay so passionate after so much time together? I’m a bit jealous.  And by the way, we got a heavy carpet for the bedroom to help give us more privacy.”

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,

Whenever I go to the pharmacy or the supermarket, I find myself veering almost uncontrollably toward products that say “All Natural” on the label. Why?

—Avi

Some time ago, my Duke University colleagues and I carried out experiments on the appeal of natural medications. The results showed that when we see the word “natural,” we don’t necessarily think that the product works any better, but we do tend to believe that it works more harmoniously with our bodies, with fewer side effects. By contrast, when we tested this preference with other products (such as glasses, cars or desks made from natural materials), people clearly preferred the artificial versions. This suggests that our preference for the natural applies largely to things that go into our bodies, such as food and medications.

Such findings can be explained by what I call the “cave man theory,” which holds that, no matter how technologically advanced we may become, many of us still believe that our bodies were designed to function best in a long-ago era. So we try to eat what our ancestors ate and shun engineered products.

But this is just a belief, and it has little to do with reality. Some synthetic components are less harmful than their natural equivalents, and quite a few natural products (sugar, salt, cholesterol, saturated fats) are dangerous for us. Still, when we hear that a product is “natural,” we see it as part of the way that things should be.

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Dear Dan,

Why are so many people reflexively opposed to the regulation of capital markets when the government strictly regulates so many other industries?

—Doug 

Consider an industry that is subject to much closer U.S. government regulation: pharmaceuticals. Since the early 1960s, when the morning-sickness drug thalidomide caused major birth defects in thousands of babies, drug companies have been required to prove a drug’s efficacy and safety before marketing it. The following decades have brought even more federal regulation of drugs.

Pharmaceuticals and capital markets have substantial similarities. Both industries make complex products that are hard to understand, both employ aggressive sales tactics, and both let consumers bear most of the risk.

So why are many more people opposed to regulating capital markets than pharmaceuticals? I suspect it has to do with our emotional reactions when things go wrong. A calamity with a new drug can mean illness and death, and we react powerfully against the perpetrators. By contrast, blunders in the financial markets produce, at worst, bankruptcies. The blame in these cases is more diffuse and the harm less emotionally charged—which means that we tend not to feel the same anger toward those responsible for the damage.

Of course, regulations should be based on the actual potential for harm, not on our emotional reactions, which is why I think we should more strictly regulate the financial markets and give more freedom for innovation to the pharmaceuticals market. ______________________________________________________

Dear Dan,

Recently, a friend told me that she wants to have my child. She meant it as a compliment, but I’m not sure if I should take it as one. What do you think?

—Daniel 

It sounds excellent on first blush, but what she’s really telling you is that she likes your genetic makeup, which you have very little to do with. She’s also telling you that your genes are the main thing that interests her. Give this particular compliment back to her, and ask for a different one.

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,

I do lots of research online for work. I’ve noticed that, as more and more information sources become available, I’m less and less sure about my research’s quality. Is my trust in online information dwindling?

—Maribel 

I suspect that the real reason isn’t trust. During my first years at university, I took many introductory classes and felt that I knew a lot about all the topics I was studying, from physiology to metaphysics. But once I got to graduate school and started reading more academic papers, I realized how large the gap was between what I knew and what I needed to learn. (Over the years, this gap has only widened.)

I suspect that your online searches have a similar effect on you. They show you the size of the gulf between what you know from online research and the other knowable information still out there.

The magnitude of this gap can be depressing, maybe even paralyzing. But the good news is that a more realistic view of how little we really know—and more humility—can open the door to more data and fewer opinions.

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Dear Dan,

I am a saleswoman working at a major company. Recently, we’ve been told to try to make physical contact with customers—for example, by touching their arm when stressing an important point. I don’t like this approach. Do you know if it has any scientific basis?

—Ayala 

You might not want to hear the answer, but we do have some evidence suggesting the efficacy of physical touch. Perhaps someone at your company read about a study by Jonathan Levav of Columbia University and Jennifer Argo of the University of Alberta published in Psychological Science in 2010. They found that individuals who experienced physical contact from women—a handshake or a touch on the shoulder—felt calmer and safer, and consequently made riskier financial decisions.

Another study published two years later—by Paul Zak and his team, in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine—found that after receiving a 15-minute massage (especially the females) were more willing to give their money to others. Dr. Paul also found that their blood contained elevated levels of oxytocin, a hormone linked to trust and intimacy.

More research backs these findings up. One 2010 study, carried out by researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, found that 45 minutes of Swedish massage reduced the levels of hormones that are released during stress and tied to aggressive behavior.

And why stop there? Armed with this information, you could go to your boss and suggest that massaging the customers is inefficient: There are lots of them, and they stay in the store for only a short time. Why not massage the employees each morning instead to make them more friendly and trusting?

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Dear Dan,

Why does a first kiss feel so magical? Is it because of the law of decreasing marginal utility, according to which the utility derived from every ensuing kiss decreases, or is it because (besides the fun of the clinch itself) the kiss provides you with so much new information—notably, that the other person feels the same way about you, which in most cases offers a huge relief from the anxiety that you were on a one-way road?

—Gaurav

I suspect that the reason first kisses are special isn’t related to waning marginal utility or rising familiarity—and certainly not because they’re better. (The technique, strategy, approach and objective performance of a smooch probably increases over time.) The key is that a first kiss has tremendous meaning attached to it. It provides a transition to a new kind of relationship and a new way for two people to think about themselves, separately and together. Maybe it is time to try to imbue our other kisses with more meaning?

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 parents, both over 60, have retired from careers in government service, with good retirement funds plus a decent monthly pension. When they were young, they faced a lot of financial difficulties, so over the years, they have turned into misers. They don’t go on holidays, dine out or indulge in any way; they buy substandard groceries, take public transportation to save on gas and fret over even petty expenses. I want them to enjoy the rest of their lives without such worries. What should I do to change their behavior regarding money.

—Vivek

Your parents’ problem comes bundled with substantial benefits. Saving early in life and living modestly are key to a healthy retirement, and I wish that more people in the U.S. behaved this way. You probably owe much of your own financial well-being and your mind-set toward money to this exemplary behavior.

That said, now that your parents are comfortable, it would be good if they were able to enjoy life to a higher degree. If I were you, I would sit with them and go over their monthly balance sheet to try to figure out how much money is coming in every month and how much they are spending on necessities.

With these numbers in hand, I would look at how much extra income they have every month—and call these funds “fun money.” Next, I would get them two prepaid debit cards and set up an automatic monthly transfer of the fun money from their checking account to the cards. In this way, the fun money will be set aside from the beginning, with a different physical identity and declared purpose—a little like chips in a casino. If you want to further drive the point home, put large red stickers on the cards and write “Fun” on them.

Finally, for the first few months, you could go over the statements with them to make sure that they are indeed spending the money in ways that make them happy.

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Dear Dan,

Do you think it’s acceptable for parents (and society in general) to lie to young children about the existence of Santa? I don’t, but I seem to be in the minority.

—Charlotte

My research center recently completed a documentary on dishonesty in which we interviewed individuals who had committed misdeeds, from insider trading to doping to infidelity. Many people, we found, take one wrong step, then rationalize it, then take another—and soon they’re on a slippery slope.

All of which is to say: It is wrong to lie to kids about Santa. You might start with a fib about Santa, but next it could be the Tooth Fairy, and after that, maybe it’s Superman, the Avengers and who knows what else.

More seriously: Your children will find out at some point, and when they do, it could cause a loss of trust that could be very unhealthy.

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Dear Dan,

When I was a teenager and my parents were in their 40s, they seemed old to me. Now I am almost 40, and I still feel young. Is it true that we stay young for longer these days? In the 21st century, when do people start feeling old?

—Nina

Despite our amazing advances, we don’t stay young for longer. The difference is your perspective. We look at ourselves as the standard, paying less attention to differences that we consider positive and overemphasizing ones we see as negative. As for your question about when we start feeling old, that’s simple: We start feeling old when we look forward more to a good night’s sleep than to a night of passion.

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.

This week, in celebration of my new book Irrationally Yours (which is based on this column), I’d like to share some feedback that I received from a reader. Please enjoy the video.

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Dear Dan,

I am ready to start investing for my retirement, but I’m struggling with those risk questionnaires. I’m not sure that I really know any of the answers. The results show that I’m somewhat conservative, but I don’t trust their conclusions. Any advice? 

—Rick

Deciding how much risk to stomach in your investment plans is a huge decision that will have a major impact on your savings and ability to retire. AND I don’t think you should base that big decision on your response to some risk-assessment questionnaire. The questions in most of these risk-attitude-assessment tools are about feelings, but you should focus on how much money you’ll need to retire and the quality of life you would have under different investment scenarios. Let’s just assume that you hate the feeling of losing. So what? Should we doom you to a life of poverty just because you feel bad when you lose money? My advice: Figure out how your life might look like with various investment approaches, figure out which tradeoffs you are (and aren’t) willing to make and plan your investments accordingly. Meanwhile, you can deal with your fear of risk directly. Learn yoga, meditate, take some medication, avoid looking at your portfolio more than twice a year—do whatever you need to deal with your emotions, but make sure that doesn’t interfere with the way you decide to invest.

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Dear Dan,

The other day, I ordered a new drink, a “London Fog tea latte,” at a local café. It arrived on the counter in a porcelain teacup with a saucer, and four lavender seeds were arranged in a fleur-de-lis at the center of the froth. The barista gave me a bestowing nod. It was the best tea latte I’d ever tasted; I found myself saying “Mmm” before the cup even reached my lips. Do our expectations actually affect how things taste to us? 

—Chelsea 

For sure. In an experiment we conducted about ten years ago at MIT, we gave the students two small beer samples and asked them to pick the one they wanted a full glass of. One sample was just plain beer, but the other sample was a regular beer plus some balsamic vinegar. We didn’t tell some students about the special ingredient, and they liked the beer with the dark additive. But when we told our tasters about the vinegar, their expectations kicked in; they expected to hate it and sure enough, they did. Such results show that expectations do indeed change what we like. More important, they show us that expectations are a fascinating interplay between our brain and our mind. We are always trying to predict the future and prepare for it. As our body changes to accommodate to the anticipated experience, it also makes those anticipations more likely to materialize. This is why expectations can change our actual experience—and why we should embrace them as much as we can. (My next answer, by the way, is going to be particularly insightful. Wait 30 seconds, and read on.)

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Dear Dan,

My nephew has been downloading music and movies illegally from the Internet. How can I get him to respect intellectual-property rights without sounding self-righteous? 

—Patricia 

My own view on illegal downloads was deeply modified the day that my book on dishonesty was published—when I learned that it had been illegally downloaded more than 20,000 times from one website. (The irony did not escape me.) My advice? Get your nephew to create something and then, without him knowing, put it online and download it many, many times. I suspect that will make it much harder for him to keep up his blithe attitude toward piracy.

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,

I’m thinking about buying the new Apple Watch, but I’m sure if it is worth it. Any advice?

—Greg

I’m not sure I can be truly objective here: I just might want one, and if I suggest that you shouldn’t get one, how could I justify buying one for myself later?

So without wanting to limit my own future purchases, let’s more generally consider the question of how we figure out whether luxury items are worth the cost.

Let’s take a very different product, black pearls, as our example. When black pearls were first introduced to the market, nobody wanted them [for more about this story, see Predictably Irrational]. But then the famous jeweler Harry Winston placed black pearls in his display windows alongside his rubies, sapphires and diamonds. He set the price of black pearls high, and they have been very valuable ever since. An important lesson from this story is that people tend to make relative judgments and to use only objects that are easy to compare as the standard for appraisal (like those rubies, sapphires and diamonds).

This implies that when you’re examining future purchases, you should ensure that you don’t just compare the object of your desire to similar objects but to other, very different things that you might also want. As you expand your scope of comparison, you should be able to make more reasonable decisions.

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Dear Dan,

I’m an air-traffic controller at a large airport. I don’t work in the tower but in a remote radar facility about 30 miles away, handling traffic within 50 miles of the airport. As a radar controller, everything is completely abstract. Would being able to actually see the planes I am guiding take off and land generate greater job satisfaction than just seeing targets on a screen?

—Zack

Probably. In many different domains (including moral judgment and empathy), when we present information in increasingly abstract ways, emotions get suppressed, and we care less. So if you plan to stay in this type of job for a while, moving to a tower might well boost your motivation.

But even if you stay put, other changes might increase the perceived meaning of your labor. What if your screen showed how many passengers were on each plane? What if, at landing time, you were told that they were all healthy? What if you were shown some pictures of the people waiting for them at the airport? With such changes, the information you have about the passengers in your care would be more than just a dot, and both your caring and your motivation should increase.

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Dear Dan,

I sometimes invite friends for dinner, and they usually ask me which dish they can bring. Actually, I really don’t want them to bring anything: It doesn’t help me out, and it might not fit with the meal I’ve got planned. But I’m not sure how I can politely reject their nice offer.

—Sigrid

I’ve had the same problem. At one point, I Googled “most difficult recipes” and picked the one I liked most. The next person who asked me what dish they could make got that recipe. I’ve been using this approach ever since, while also telling people that it truly is fine not to bring a dish. They inevitably end up bringing wine or flowers.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

By the way! “Irrationally Yours,” a book based on this column, will be published May 18 by HarperCollins (which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp).