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 just got back from a trip to Europe, and although I knew that Europeans were much less obese than Americans, it was still shocking to see the difference. It is also not true that they don’t have fast food joints. Can you shed some light on these national differences? 

—Alvin

Some think that the key factor is the European diet: more homemade food and less prepackaged food, smaller portion sizes, less sugar and corn syrup, etc. I have no doubt that there is some truth to this, but I would propose that our differences in weight also have to do with the fact that Europeans use kilograms while Americans use pounds.

Here is my proposed logic, using me as an example: I weigh 170 pounds, which is also 77 kilograms (well, the truth is that right now I might be closer to 174 pounds, but my real weight is 170). Depending on the time of day and what we eat, our weight fluctuates by a pound or more, as most of us know. This kind of fluctuation lets us convince ourselves that when the scale shows 172, our real weight is still 170, even if it has not shown 170 for a while.

If one day our weight is 174, would we say to ourselves “I am gaining weight, and I need to change what I eat” or would we be able to justify this as part of the random fluctuation around our supposed real weight of 170? By contrast, if we were using the kilogram system, the fluctuations would be much smaller, and when we learned that we were one kilogram heavier, we might act on this change more quickly.

My suggestion: Switch to kilograms (and while we’re at it, maybe we can move to the metric system more generally).

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Dear Dan,

There are people in my office who have a hard time focusing for even 20 minutes on their jobs. Nevertheless, they seem perfectly capable of exercising for long stretches, and they are quite persistent in that. Can you explain this contradiction?

—Michael

This might actually not be a contradiction but rather, as I learned recently, two faces of the same mechanism. A few weeks ago, I flew to California for some meetings. I left home at 4:30 a.m. and got to San Francisco at 10 a.m. I had a few meetings, and by 5 p.m. was exhausted. I had a lot of work-related tasks and was determined to get at least some of them done, but I felt devoid of energy. So I went for a run.

Ordinarily, I go for a run maybe once every 10 years. But this run was fantastic! I ran a bit, walked a bit, listened to music along the way. It was challenging, and I ran out of breath, but in no way was it even close to the mental exhaustion of doing the things I was supposed to work on.

Here is my new understanding: I think that people who either don’t enjoy what they’re doing for work or don’t have the mental stamina to focus on it can take long breaks for exercise. On top of that if your co-workers took a two-hour book or movie break, they would be seen as selfish slackers, wasting time. But because society tells us that exercising is good for our health, it is a perfectly good excuse to escape work. Now that I have discovered this way to take time for myself and not feel guilty about it, I am going to do more of it.

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Dear Dan,

The health-care benefits provided by my employer have just been updated to include a hefty monthly surcharge to smokers. I put little effort into quitting smoking, although I know this is the right thing to do. This smoking tax might motivate me to quit, but at the same time it infuriates me that my employer has the power to charge me for smoking. What is your opinion?

—Anonymous 

The smoking rate in the U.S. is about 20%, and companies that add such smoking surcharges usually find that the smoking rate drops overnight to less than 10%. Or, more precisely, they find that the smoking surcharge dramatically reduces the number of people who say that they smoke.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

According to a report that came out in the British Medical Journal, the risk of death after undergoing non-emergency surgery is lowest on Monday (1%), and goes up every day of the week thereafter. People who have surgery on Friday are 44% more likely to die than those who have it on Monday (the rate increases from 1% to 1.44%). The news is still worse for the small number of people who have surgery on the weekends, when the risk of death from complications rises 82% compared to Monday (the rate increases to 1.82%).

It’s important to note that the risk is still low (it reaches around 1.82% on for people who have weekend surgeries, an increase of 0.82%). That said, obviously there should not be such a notable variation in mortality based on day of the week surgery is scheduled. One solution might be that going forward, high-risk or major surgeries should only be performed in the beginning of the week, saving lower-risk procedures for later in the week. Combined with increased efforts to educate patients on recognizing signs that they need to seek medical attention, perhaps this increased risk can be brought back in line.

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,

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 personal experience, I know that some people delay making a choice as long as possible, while others make quick decisions. What differentiates these two types and what advice would you give to get people to make decisions faster and to feel better about them?

—Amy 

In my own studies, we hardly ever find large differences among individuals. In the social sciences in general, individual differences are usually smaller than people expect and matter less than the environment. So if we look at your question, I would phrase it slightly differently and ask, “What kinds of things get people to delay decisions and what kinds of environments get people to take immediate action?”

I would suggest that things like deadlines are incredibly helpful. One British granting agency used to have two deadlines for professors to submit grant applications. When this system was in place, everybody was rushing to submit papers and proposals in time for those grant deadlines. Then the agency let people submit proposals whenever they wished, with decisions on grants made twice a year. No more rushing! But the number of proposals submitted dropped dramatically. Why? Because deadlines allow us to clarify our thoughts and create an action plan. They are good at getting people to perform a particular act, like submitting a grant proposal.

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Dear Dan,

I work in high tech but can’t seem to get ahead. A good friend of mine on the police force gets promoted all the time. He claims that it has to do not with him but with the lower quality of the people working there. Would it be better to choose a line of work where everybody is mediocre and I’m the best, instead of a high-profile workplace?

—David

The problem has to do with the joy people derive from feeling that they are advancing and developing in their careers. This sensation really is important. It provides gratification, self-esteem and recognition from your peers.

Widespread recognition of this need explains why so many companies have invented titles and intermediate positions for senior executives, vice presidents and deputy CEOs. They want managers to experience the gratification of moving ahead even when they have reached the top of the ladder.

At first, this trend only affected management—engineers remained engineers, even when their salaries increased and responsibilities expanded. But over the years, companies made up new titles for lower-level employees as well. And for clear and justified reasons, it seems that you are in need of such a title.

Your predicament is whether to be a small fish in a big pond, as you are now, or a big fish in a small pond, like your friend—a situation that would seem easier and more gratifying.

But before you quit your job for one where the people aren’t as good, I would advise you to try two things: First, see if you can receive, or even create, a promotion. Speak to your boss. Try for a change in your responsibilities and thereby your feeling of accomplishment. Second, talk to more friends, maybe even find some new ones who are not doing as well as your policeman friend. You may find that you are extremely successful compared with some.

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Dear Dan,

I spend a lot of time in not-very-interesting conferences calls using Skype and Google Hangout. I try to get things done during this time by using my computer to answer emails: I turn off the video capability, so that no one can see me, and try to type quietly, so that no one can hear. But the sound of the keyboard seems to vibrate through the computer, and the person on the other side knows I am not paying attention. Any advice?

—Kristen 

This is exactly what tablets are for.

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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,

We recently got married and are having a hard time deciding where to live. Should we live in the city, close to where we work? Or would we be better off finding some place cheaper, greener and farther away from the city?

—A Couple from the Center

Your decision should take a few things into account. First, most of us can get used to most things: houses of different sizes, for instance, or a neighborhood that is green or drab. And we adapt to most changes faster than we expect. Many years ago, for example, I suffered a serious injury that changed my life dramatically. But over time I got used to these changes, and now my life is much better than I would have expected.

But there are some things that we don’t get used to, at least not that easily. One of these, sadly, is commuting—that annoying daily trip from the small neighborhood where we live to our place of work in the big city. We don’t get used to such trips because we never know what’s in store for us in traffic. If we know that we can leave home each day at 7:30 a.m. and arrive at 9 a.m., we can live with that. But because of traffic and bottlenecks, we never know when we might arrive. And this uncertainty makes it difficult to get used to commuting, making each day start out so badly.

This is why I suggest that you take distance from work into account as a significant factor in deciding where to live. It will play a larger role in your life than you think.

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Dear Dan,

What is the best way to inject some rationality into our decision-making?

—Joe 

I am not certain of the best way, but here is one approach that might help: When we face decisions, we are trapped within our own perspective—our own special motivations and emotions, our egocentric view of the world at that moment. To make decisions that are more rational, we want to eliminate those barriers and look at the situation more objectively. One way to do this is to think not of making a decision for yourself but of recommending a decision for somebody else whom you like. This lets you view the situation in a colder, more detached way, and make better decisions.

For example, in one experiment we told people, “Imagine you went to your doctor and the doctor recommended a very expensive treatment. You’ve been seeing this doctor for 10 years. Would you go for a second opinion?” Most people said “no.” We asked another group to imagine a friend in the same situation. Would they recommend that a friend seek out a second opinion? Most people said “yes.”

This suggests that when we think about other people, we take our emotions out of the picture and are able to recommend something more useful—such as going for a second opinion.

But when it’s us, and we have a longtime commitment to a particular doctor, it’s hard to ignore this relationship and our feeling of obligation. Taking the advice approach may not be the best way to inject some rationality into your decision-making (and it’s certainly not the only way), but it is useful to imagine how you would advise another person, particularly someone you care about.

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Dear Dan,

What do you think about democracy, since everybody gets the same right to vote, whether they are smart or less smart? Because the number of the less smart is so large, in a democracy they end up having greater influence. Is this kind of equality in choice good for society?

—Dina 

Churchill answered this one: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (from a speech in the House of Commons, Nov. 11, 1947)

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

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

A couple weeks back, I answered a question about lost socks in my Q&A Column for the WSJ. Many people were very interested in this topic and had a lot to say on the fate of lost socks. Below are the original question and some of the insights provided by my readers:

Dear Dan,

I have a question that has been bothering me for a very long time: Why is it that socks always get lost in the laundry?

—Jamie

This is a deep and important question, and I actually looked into it some time ago with one of my Israeli friends, Ornit Raz.

We discovered that belief in the supernatural is very strong when it comes to the disappearance of socks. Otherwise reasonable people, who think that they have a strong grasp of the forces of nature, feel at a loss when it comes to this universal mystery, and it deeply shakes their faith in the laws of physics.

We also found one mechanism that can explain this mystery—the overcounting of missing socks. You have many socks, and if you see one of them and don’t immediately find its partner, you say, “Oh! A sock has been lost!” You remember that a sock is missing, but you do not exactly recall its type or color.

Later on, you see the matching sock, but you don’t remember that it forms a pair with the first sock, and you say to yourself (again): “Another sock is missing. Where is its partner? I can’t believe so many socks go missing.”

So we often count as lost each sock in a pair—even though neither is really lost. At the end of the day, the mystery is not due to the suspension of the law of physics but to the much larger puzzle of how our memory works (or doesn’t work). Yet I still feel that, at the back of my laundry machine, there may be a black hole that is suitable just for socks.

Reader Responses:

I have proof that your Missing Sock Theory is not true. I have been keeping a special place for all my lone socks for at least 13 years. (I know, a bit extreme – the downside of hope.)

And each time another sock comes out of the dryer without a mate I run to all my other lonely socks to see if I have a pair. Most of the time I do not, or else I do find that other mate.

But I have had a permanent amount of lone socks with no change for a long time. I’m thoroughly convinced that if I throw them out all their mates will suddenly appear, but I will have forgotten I threw them out and then I would be at Square One again: a bunch of socks without mates.

Full of hope,

-Dede

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I do not often correct famous writers, however the question of missing socks forced me to respond. Socks do not go missing— rather they multiply in the dark, moist and warm atmosphere of the dryer. Just saying.

-Cathy G

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Your response to Jamie in WSJ issue of June 22-23 regarding missing laundered socks was humorous, but less than helpful. This mystery was solved for me when I had a repairman in to repair my washing machine. When he took it apart we discovered several (single) socks that had floated up and over the rotating drum and had become lodged between it and the outer wall of the washer. I suspect that this is the mechanism that causes most socks to become separated from their mates – not some mysterious black hole or a loss of memory that prevents me from checking the sock drawer and discovering that I already had the sock’s missing mate on hand.

-Babette

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While your explanation to the missing socks phenomenon was certainly informative, I always understood that socks are the larval stage of wire hangers.

-Ed

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I enjoy your weekly WSJ column, and I believe I’ve read most of your book (I’m bad at keeping track of books I’ve read). Anyhow, I’m writing about your hypothesis about the lost socks. I thought the same as you a year or so back, and decided to test it. Each time the laundry produced an orphaned sock, I put it in a separate box. To date, the box houses twelve orphaned socks, and no sock has been reunited with its partner. Sadly, I’m slowly losing confidence this circumstance will change.

I hope my current experiment with plastic food containers and lids yields more beneficial results (only half joking).

Thanks for the good writing.

-Sam

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,

As you creep along in a traffic jam, someone inevitably tries to enter your lane from the side. Now here is the issue: If I let the car in, I feel good about it. But when I see others in front of me let someone in, I feel cheated, because I’ve been waiting longer than the car entering the lane, and I am upset with the driver who acted kindly at my expense. Any idea why I feel so different about these two situations?

—Walt

The issues here are control and credit. When you let someone into your lane, you’re the one making the decision—and you’re the one getting the nod or the hand-wave as an expression of gratitude. In contrast, if someone else is letting the needy car in, you have no control over the decision, and you’re not getting the credit—you only see the downside of the increased delay.

Consider a more moderate version of this case, one where you simply keep a large distance between you and the car in front of you. By doing this, you’re allowing the cars from the merging lane to come into your lane at will, but it doesn’t require a separate act of generosity on your part (you aren’t slowing down to let them in).

My guess is that this version of accommodating other drivers also would not feel very good for you, not to mention that you’re not going to get any credit for your kindness.

What‘s the conclusion? First, to feel good about the good fortune of someone else, we need to feel that the positive outcome is a result of our own actions. Second, we want other people to recognize how wonderful and helpful we are.

Still, given how many other people are stuck in traffic ahead of you and that they’ll keep on letting other cars merge, maybe you should start thinking that real altruism consists of allowing good things to happen both directly and indirectly—and even when other people are getting the credit for it. Taking this attitude won’t be easy, but if you manage it, good things will follow.

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Dear Dan,

I’m reading your book “The Upside of Irrationality.” As I read your description of the burn injuries you suffered as a teenager, I wondered the following: If you and I were ever to meet, and we shook hands, would it hurt you? My own hand was injured many years ago, and people can cause me pain by squeezing it when shaking. Basically, I worry when shaking hands with a new person. Do you have a similar worry? How would you like people to shake your hand? 

—Donni 

For me, the question of shaking hands is a mix of potential pain and the feeling that I am not part of normal society. If people shake my hand too strongly, it is painful, and if they shake too loosely, it reminds me of my injury and how I am still perceived by the outside world as someone who looks different. With this trade-off in mind, I prefer that people shake my hand, even if it causes me some pain. It may be irrational, but I like being able to share in this ritual of greeting. It lets me feel that I am part of the wider society.

Taking a different approach, I have started to switch from handshaking to hugs, which are not only less painful on my hands but more personal, more enjoyable and maybe even less likely than handshakes to transmit germs—so maybe this is a good direction for society as a whole.

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Dear Dan,

Are the stock markets manipulated or are they truly a mathematical outcome of buyers and sellers?

—Dave

Markets are a mathematical outcome of the interaction between buyers and sellers—some of whom successfully manipulate the prices.

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.

______________________________________________________

Dear Dan,

I have a question that has been bothering me for a very long time: Why is it that socks always get lost in the laundry?

—Jamie

This is a deep and important question, and I actually looked into it some time ago with one of my Israeli friends, Ornit Raz.

We discovered that belief in the supernatural is very strong when it comes to the disappearance of socks. Otherwise reasonable people, who think that they have a strong grasp of the forces of nature, feel at a loss when it comes to this universal mystery, and it deeply shakes their faith in the laws of physics.

We also found one mechanism that can explain this mystery—the overcounting of missing socks. You have many socks, and if you see one of them and don’t immediately find its partner, you say, “Oh! A sock has been lost!” You remember that a sock is missing, but you do not exactly recall its type or color.

Later on, you see the matching sock, but you don’t remember that it forms a pair with the first sock, and you say to yourself (again): “Another sock is missing. Where is its partner? I can’t believe so many socks go missing.”

So we often count as lost each sock in a pair—even though neither is really lost. At the end of the day, the mystery is not due to the suspension of the law of physics but to the much larger puzzle of how our memory works (or doesn’t work). Yet I still feel that, at the back of my laundry machine, there may be a black hole that is suitable just for socks.

______________________________________________________

Dear Dan,

Our daughter has been married to a bullying control freak for the past five years. We have no sympathy for her; she is an admitted gold-digger, and her hubby has boatloads of money. Knowing our feelings about the marriage, they have shut us out. My wife and I would like to see our grandson, but grandparents have no visiting privileges in our state. Any advice?

—Reg

It is hard to give advice on this complex issue, but here are a few suggestions. First, try calling your daughter and her husband and simply saying that you’re sorry about previous negative encounters. You don’t sound sorry to me, but that’s OK—just say it and say it repeatedly. In experiments, we found that saying sorry works rather well, and it works even if people don’t mean it. It works even if the person from whom you ask forgiveness knows you don’t really mean it.

The point is that, when someone says he or she was wrong and asks forgiveness, it’s hard to keep on being mad at them. You might find it hard to swallow your pride, but think about this relationship as a game of chess. You really care about the king (seeing your grandson), and pride is just a pawn in the game (well, maybe a bishop)—so it’s OK to sacrifice it.

If this approach doesn’t work, and if you’re serious about getting access to your grandson, I would recommend that you move in next door. This will force some interaction between you, and hatred is going to be harder to maintain—particularly if you are nice to your grandson (what parents can hate people who love their kids?) and if your grandson wants to spend more time with you (what parents can resist their kids?).

Finally, I should mention that my personal experience is that living next to my parents-in-law is not only incredibly helpful, meaningful and useful, but that the pleasures of an extended family have been beyond my expectations.

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Dear Dan,

With the recent debate over gun control and protecting school children, should we arm schoolteachers to make schools safer?

—Ron

Hard to know from the point of view of policy, but here’s one thing that is clear to me: If my own schoolteachers had been armed, I would not have survived middle school.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

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.