Behave Yourself: Moral Behavior and Conformity As kids we were often nudged by our parents to be conventional: “look at your behavior- why don’t you behave like everyone else?” is a sentence I’ve been hearing from mum too often as … Continue reading A moral rule of thumb
The potential of behavioural economics: beyond the nudge Behavioural economics is a revolutionary field. Its champions may not have beheaded any royalty, but they have done the academic equivalent by overthrowing a paradigm that ruled our thinking and shaped our … Continue reading A nudge bias
Confirmation Bias: Why You Should Seek Out Disconfirming Evidence Confirmation bias is our tendency to cherry pick information which confirms pre-existing beliefs or ideas. This is also known as myside bias or confirmatory bias. Two people with opposing views on … Continue reading The desire to be right
Platonically irrational In his essay ‘On Being Modern-Minded’ (1950), Bertrand Russell describes a particularly seductive illusion about history and intellectual progress. Because every age tends to exaggerate its uniqueness and imagine itself as a culmination of progress, continuities with previous … Continue reading Plato on cognitive biases
There’s a mathematical formula for choosing the fastest queue It seems obvious. You arrive at the checkouts and see one queue is much longer than the other, so you join the shorter one. But, before long, the people in the … Continue reading The inspection paradox
What’s Stopping Chileans from Saving Saving money is important not only for long-term needs like retirement but also for expenses in the short term. This is because incomes and expenses are not always constant, and people can’t necessarily predict when … Continue reading Too optimistic to save
A.I. That Predicted Kentucky Derby Superfecta Reveals 2017 Bets The betting world has spent the past several weeks obsessing over its predictions for this Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, but those who pay attention to artificial intelligence held back their money until … Continue reading Swarm intelligence
