I just posted a new study that should take you about 5 minutes to complete. If you would like to take the survey (and I would appreciate it very much), please look to the right sidebar under “Participate” and click on the “Take a quick anonymous survey” link. You can also access it right here.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Irrationally Yours,

I’m excited to announce our third annual StartupOnomics (August 23-25).

This is an opportunity for companies that are seeking to make world a better place to hang out with experts in behavioral economics. We’ll spend an intensive weekend at the end of August in San Francisco learning about how people make decisions so that your product can have a bigger impact.

In years past we’ve had great companies join us. LumoBack, Warby Parker, Etsy, LearnUp, Basis and more.

This year we’re keeping teams overnight at a beautiful location right under the Golden Gate bridge – Cavallo Point. Epic sunset pictures are all but guaranteed. We’re also excited to include follow up sessions this year, to ensure the learning sticks.

If you’re a company in health, finance, education or green, please apply here by July 25. 

Topics:

•        Product adoption and growth
•        Increasing active usage
•        Building loyal customers that love you
•        Payment strategies
•        Building a team that loves what they do
•        Measuring what matters
•        Testing approaches and best practices

Looking forward to this

Dan

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.

a research app for smartphone scientists on the go

Social science has uncovered many fascinating aspects of human behavior, from how we think as individuals to how we act in groups. We know that humans are loss averse, emotional, habit-forming creatures. We mispredict the future and misremember the past. And yet, what social science is missing is a better understanding of how these phenomena (and others) change over time, in different cultures and regions, across gender and age.

By collecting a heaping amount of data (and increasing the size of our samples), we hope to unravel nuances in behavioral variations; we hope to detect the impact of minor differences that simply wouldn’t appear in smaller samples. The pursuit of this app is to collect an abundance of data from an abundance of locations all over the world, shining light on behavioral similarities and differences, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. To do this, we need your help! Join our team of smartphone scientists and take on small tasks that will be “pushed” to you through the app.

On some occasions, you’ll be asked to give your opinion about various topics; you may be asked to predict the outcome of an experiment or to record your thoughts on anything from wealth distribution to peer influence. On other occasions, you’ll be sent out into the world to collect data; you may be asked to interact with a stranger or observe a scene and record certain details. Prepare to be surprised and delighted by the exciting research you will be a part of.

Participate in a movement that transcends oceans and cultural barriers, gaining access to a wider range of information than ever before. Download the app now, and get started on your first mission!

How it Works

1. create an account
2. complete your first mission by following the directions in the app
3. sit back and wait for the next mission to be pushed to you, and make sure to complete it before time runs out!
4. keep track of your missions and your points earned for each task

Get it now for your iPhone and iPad.

Thanks for downloading the PI app — you’ve brought it up to the #2 spot in iTunes!!

If you’d like to give the app a review in the app store, I’d very much appreciate it.

Hello friends,

This blog has turned into a great way to keep in touch with you — a persistently curious crew interested in the same Big Questions at the heart of my research: Why do we behave in the ways we do? Why do we do things that don’t always serve our best interests? What can we do to change?

As a small token of gratitude for your attention, we are dropping the price on the app edition of “Predictably Irrational” to $0.99 from now until June 7th (so, for the next 72 hours). The app offers up its own unique way to explore my research — a visual index of the book’s key ideas, with topics served up on slide-like “cards.” Makes for a neat new way to explore the book, whether you’ve already read it or not.

Irrationally yours,

Dan Ariely

Download the app here.

Three years ago today was the publication date of “The Upside of Irrationality”

The book has 2 parts: the first is about motivation at work, and the other is about personal life (dating, happiness etc).  Interestingly, in the last year I am getting much more interest from companies to do field research related to both of these domains, and this is leading to some new exciting findings on the psychology of labor and on dating…..   More to come.

For now, Mazal Tov

You know the pain of making a bad money decision, from small to large—remember that Living Social deal you never used, or the big house you thought you needed that turned out to be a money pit? Sure you do! But most of us don’t know how to spend money in a way that actually makes us happy, aside from the rush of novelty that quickly dissipates as the hedonic treadmill continues on. Well, allow me to present a new book from my friends Mike Norton and Liz Dunn, which will help you do exactly that. This is not your typical CPA make-and-save-money advice—this lays out well-researched advice for how to spend money in a way that improves your life as a whole.  Who couldn’t use that?

In the mean time, here’s an Arming the Donkeys interview I had with Mike on this very topic.

Enjoy, and Happy Reading!

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~

Good news! Arming the Donkeys, my (almost!) weekly podcast, will now be available on Tunein Radio, a website and mobile app for music and radio broadcasts. If you’re unfamiliar with the podcast, as close to weekly as possible I interview a different researcher as we explore a topic connected to behavioral economics (self-deception, corruption, will power, you name it). And if you haven’t ventured into the world of Tunein, it’s a fantastic platform worth exploring—you can listen to local stations, broadcast shows, sports, news, and any music genre you could want (Polka, anyone?). And now, Arming the Donkeys! I’m excited to be joining the line up, and hope you’ll visit ATD’s new home.