In the course of our lives, we come across countless opportunities to help others. The occasional homeless person or charity asks for a donation, or the Red Cross is collecting blood across the street. But most of the time, these opportunities present themselves through our social networks — simply because we interact most often with … Continue reading »
Filed under Behavioral Economics …
Do Libraries Give Us the Freedom to Steal?
I am interested in the morally ambiguous realm of music/video/book piracy, a place where everyone has something to say and no qualms about saying it. A couple weeks ago, over a chocolate croissant, I was having what was probably my 5,637th conversation on this topic, and my new friend (for his own protection let’s just … Continue reading »
The Behavioral Economics of Eating Animals
Throughout my life, I have loved eating meat, but my two best friends at Duke are vegetarians, and because of them I was persuaded to read Eating Animals by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Jonathan Safran Foer. While Foer mainly writes novels, his newest book is non-fiction, and discusses many topics that revolve around, well…eating … Continue reading »
Dishonest Drunks
When you think about behavioral science research, the image that probably comes to mind is that of laboratories, computers, surveys, electrodes, and maybe even rats — but you may not realize the amount of research conducted in the field. At the Center for Advanced Hindsight we certainly do our share of lab research, but we … Continue reading »
The Opportunity Cost of Sitting in the Back Seat: Wisdom Gleaned from Rebecca Black’s “Friday”
The concept of opportunity cost can be seen in the emergent societal dilemma presented by Rebecca Black through her insightful lyrics: “Kickin’ in the front seat Sittin’ in the back seat Gotta make my mind up Which seat can I take?” As we can see, Rebecca must choose between kicking in the front seat and … Continue reading »
