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.

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,

Often when I meet with a group of my closest friends, the discussion goes something like this: “Where do you want to go?” “Not sure.” “Where do you want to go?” “Not sure.” Etc. These discussions are frustrating and waste time. Any advice on how to move them forward and get to a decision faster?

—Matthew 

When someone asks “What do you want to do tonight?” what they often are saying implicitly is: “What is the most exciting thing we can do tonight, given all the options and all the people involved?”

The problem is that figuring out the best solution is very difficult. First, we need to bring to mind all the alternatives, next our preferences and the preferences of the people in the group. Then we have to find the one activity that will maximize this set of constraints and preferences.

The basic problem here is that, in your search for the optimal activity, you are not taking the cost of time into account, so you waste your precious time asking “What do you want to do?”—which is probably the worst way to spend your time.

To overcome this problem, I would set up a rule that limits the amount of time that you are allowed to spend searching for a solution, and I would set up a default in case you fail to come up with a better option. For example, take a common good activity (going to drink at X, playing basketball at Y) and announce to your friends that, unless someone else comes up with a better alternative, in 10 minutes you are all heading out to X (or Y).

I would also set up a timer on your phone to make it clear that you mean business and to make sure that the time limit is kept. Once the buzzer sounds, just start heading out to X (or Y), asking who wants to come with you and telling everyone else that you will meet them there. After doing this a few times, your friends will get used to it and perhaps bring an end to this wasteful habit.

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Dear Dan,

I’d like to understand something I see in my own life and in billion-dollar companies: the switch from aiming to succeed to aiming not to fail. You see this in companies such as Microsoft, but even the National Aeronautics and Space Administration went from the ambitious 1960s-’80s era to its current conservative program. What can we do to overcome this problem?

—Alex

Assuming this is indeed a generalized pattern (and it would be interesting to collect data on the question), it might be a simple outcome of the endowment effect: basically, once we own something, we get used to it and are very reluctant to see it go away. When you are just starting out, you have nothing, so you look at potential gains and losses to some degree on an equal footing. But once you experience some success, you start thinking more carefully about what you have, and you don’t want to give it up, so you become much more conservative. In the process, you give up the things that made you successful from the get-go. Nor are companies alone in this: I suspect that the tendency to switch to a do-nothing defensive posture is just as common in the behavior of our public officials and governments.

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Dear Dan,

Someone once said to me that marriage is like betting someone half of everything you own that you’d love him or her forever. Do you agree?

—Shane

From the perspective of an outside observer, there are some things in life that can be described as a bet or a gamble—while for the people directly involved, looking at it that way will be a very bad idea. Marriage is one of these cases. It might be fun and interesting to think about other peoples’ marriages in such terms, but don’t be tempted to think about your own relationship this way. And certainly don’t mention these odds to your significant other.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

Today, Dan will talk to some lucky google+ers about the psychology of money.

To participate, join the Psychology Community on Google+ and post your thoughts about this topic. Dan will select the most insightful contributors to join him in a Hangout On Air on 9/26 at 2 PM ET.

UPDATE: Here is the conversation.

(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.

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 turning 30 in December, and I want to have a “nontraditional” celebration. I’m thinking about re-creating some economics experiments at my party.

Here’s the plan: Lots of alcohol and yummy appetizers at a fancy place here in Dallas. Computers scattered across the room with small apps, each running a different experiment. After all, how many parties do you go to where you get to have fun, have too much to drink and learn something about economics? Any advice?

—Virginia

I really love your idea—and here is a suggestion for an experiment relating to dishonesty. Give each of your guests a quarter and ask them to predict whether it will land heads or tails, but they should keep that prediction to themselves. Also tell them that a correct forecast gets them a drink, while a wrong one gets them nothing.

Then ask each guest to toss the coin and tell you if their guess was right. If more than half of your guests “predicted correctly,” you’ll know that as a group they are less than honest. For each 1% of “correct predictions” above 50% you can tell that 2% more of the guests are dishonest. (If you get 70% you will know that 40% are dishonest.) Also, observe if the amount of dishonesty increases with more drinking. Mazel tov, and let me know how it turns out!

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Dear Dan,

My daughter started dating a lazy, dumb guy. How can we tell her gently that he is wrong for her without preaching to her, causing her to ignore us or go against our advice?

—Concerned Mother

It seems that you are experiencing the same reaction most mothers around the world have toward their daughters’ boyfriends. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you are, in fact, correct, and that your daughter’s new boyfriend really is dumb, lazy and up to no good. Nevertheless, don’t tell your daughter your opinion and instead ask her questions. Naturally, people tend not to ask themselves certain questions. But if someone else asks them, these questions get planted in their minds, and it is hard to keep from thinking about them. So thoughtful questions can make people think differently about what they want and how they view the world around them.

For example, you can ask, “How do you and your boyfriend get along? Do you ever fight? What do you love about him? What do you like less about him?” I admit it’s a bit manipulative, but I hope it will get her to think about her relationship in more depth. And maybe she will reach the same conclusions you have.

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Dear Dan,

My wife-to-be really wants to get a two-carat ring, but I’d rather get a smaller ring and spend the rest of the money for future expenses—house, wedding, etc.

Her view is that most of her friends have big rings, plus she’s been dreaming about this for a long time. What do you think about this irrational behavior? Any advice?

—Jay

First, there is a difference between irrational and difficult to understand, and for sure it is irrational to call your future wife irrational in public. If you get her a ring, realize that comparison to her friends is part of the game you are buying into and try to get her a ring that will make her happy with this comparison.

At the same time, what if you could switch to a different jewelry category—maybe a wedding necklace or bracelet? In this case comparison will not be as clear, and you could probably get away with spending much less.

Finally, has it occurred to you that she may want this so much because you are so against it?

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,

From time to time, people around me discuss a book they have read recently. While I know the book well, and I want to participate in the conversation, I hesitate because I listened to the book on tape. My first question is why am I embarrassed to say that I listened to the book? My second question is what can I do about it?

—Paula

We learn how to listen and comprehend at a young age and therefore we don’t really remember how difficult it was for us. On the other hand, we learn how to read and write at a later age and we all remember the difficulty of the early struggles with reading and writing. Because of that, people associate greater difficulty with reading than listening. As a consequence, we take greater pride in reading than listening.

My first suggestion is that you realize that it isn’t necessarily the case that reading is more difficult. It’s just that we forget how difficult it is to learn to comprehend. When I got your question I purchased an audio book and I listened to it on a long flight–and for what it is worth, I find it is harder to focus when listening to a book than when reading one.

A second suggestion is that you to find a different word to describe your experience. For example, for books you loved, maybe you can say: “I inhaled that book.” For more difficult books, maybe you can say: “I struggled with it,” or some other phrase.

If these don’t work, perhaps it is time to change the meaning of the word “read.” Maybe we should acknowledge that today there are many ways to get information — audiobooks being one of them. This might seem dishonest, but you might be able to start a revolution, and help lots of people who listen to audiobooks feel more comfortable with what they’re doing. Good luck!

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Dear Dan,

I noticed that when I drive around the block looking for parking I spend a lot of time too far away from my destination (I live in Chicago, and hate the cold), so instead, I just wait until somebody leaves and take the spot. It proved to be more efficient, but my friends can’t seem to stand it, and I can’t do it when I’m not alone in the car. My question is why my friends find in intolerable waiting for someone to leave.

—Danny 

The phenomenon you’re encountering is aversion to idleness. There was a story a while ago about an airline that tried to optimize which carousel that the luggage would come out of. There was an engineer with this airline that realized that some carousels were close to some gates, and others were close to other gates. He wrote an algorithm to try to figure out which carousels to send the luggage to so that it would be closest to where the plane was landing. Before this algorithm was created, travelers would get out of the plane, walk for a while and get to the carousel. Sometimes it was such a long walk that their luggage was waiting for them already, and they would pick it up and go home. In the new system, the carousel was much closer and people would walk a little bit, find the carousel and wait for their luggage. People hated this new system because they were standing in one place to wait for their luggage. This idleness was so unpleasant that people complained and the airline rejected this algorithm. My understanding is that they have not gone the whole way in the reverse and tried to get the luggage in the farthest carousel possible, but maybe it is something they are still working on.

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Dear Dan,

Many people justify evading paying for public transportation by rationalizing that “public transportation services aren’t value for money,” that “it’s a victimless crime,” and that “as a tax paying passengers, we’ve already paid for my journey once.” Do you have any advice on counteracting these rationalizations?

—Julian

Make these people buy some shares of the public transportation company.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

I just posted a new study that should take you about 2 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.

Irrationally Yours,

There are plenty of things that might upset Johnny “The Basin Street Butcher” Martorano. Perhaps having murdered 20 people in the course of his career as a mob hitman doesn’t sit so well decades later. Well, no, this is not it,  Martorano recently recounted his murders as part of Whitey Bulger’s trial with a perfectly flat affect, much to the displeasure of his victims’ families. It seems guilt doesn’t keep him up at night.

So what wounded this evidently hard-hearted man? A betrayal of friendship and trust!  During the trial, Martorano said of Bulger and fellow gangster, Stephen Flemmi (in perhaps the only instance the expression has been used in earnest) “They were my partners in crime, they were my best friends, they were my children’s godfathers.” Of all the things that could cause The Basin Street Butcher pain, it was the snitching of his fellow murderers.

This is the kind of “irrational ethics” I’ve found through many interviews with convicted criminals. Usually the crimes for which they’re incarcerated aren’t the cause of their moral outrage, it’s that someone from their inside group inviolated a moral rule that was part of their moral code, in this case, cooperating with the “enemy.” This is the power of social norms in its most extreme form. Even though the usual societal rules are disregarded, another sort of code emerges and becomes the basis for judging one’s actions. So it’s “okay” to kill a person outside your in-group for stealing or talking to the cops, but it’s crossing the ultimate line to do so within the group. All that said, you really have to wonder what their get-togethers were like.