Behavioral
A Simple Thumbs Up or Down Eliminates Racial Bias in Online Ratings
Yale SOM’s Tristan Botelho and his co-authors found that the ubiquitous five-star rating system could subtly propagate discrimination. But they also found a surprisingly simple fix: switching to a two-point scale (thumbs up or thumbs down) eliminated subtle racial bias in customer ratings of gig workers.
Why You Buy What You Buy
Professor Ravi Dhar runs through how recent research in psychology helps explain how we all make decisions when shopping. When are you impulsive? When do you really think things through? When do you make the good long-term choice? And when do you go for the junk food?
Robert Shiller: Owning a Home Isn’t Always a Virtue
In the New York Times, Professor Robert Shiller writes that the United States should reduce government subsidies for homeownership, while finding another way to promote household saving.
Manager Favoritism Blocks New Ideas
New research co-authored by Professor Olav Sorenson finds that managers are biased against ideas that are proposed by employees outside of their own work groups, hurting innovation and performance.
How do you build a culture of innovation?
How does a successful company maintain a climate in which new ideas and risk-taking are encouraged? Tim Brown, CEO and president of the design consultancy IDEO, describes how he thinks about innovation and why empathy is an important part of the equation.
Yes, We’re Confident, but Who Knows Why
As housing, unemployment, the stock market, and the overall economy show signs of recovery, Professor Robert Shiller writes in the New York Times that we understand little about how people’s confidence affect these major turning points. "…[P]ublic thinking is inscrutable. We can keep trying to understand it, but we’ll be puzzled again the next time the markets or the economy make major moves."
The Language We Speak Predicts Saving and Health Behavior
Languages differ in how much they distinguish between the present and the future. Professor Keith Chen found that speakers of languages that do not rely on the future tense make more future-oriented choices, including saving more money, retiring with more wealth, and smoking less.
Why do we like what we like?
At the moment we consume, say, a chocolate bar, our brains seamlessly synthesize sensory phenomena, ideas, memories, and expectations—which means that we often don't fully understand why we like the things we like. Psychologist Paul Bloom describes how storytelling and marketing can add layers of meaning to our pleasures.
The Pleasure of Guilt
Guilt may be a key mechanism for enhancing pleasure, according to new research co-authored by Professor Ravi Dhar.
Classroom Insights: Risk Aversion in Decision Making
Nathan Novemsky, professor of marketing, explains to his Problem Framing course how Prospect Theory–the series of ideas and experimental observations that lie at the root of behavioral economics–elucidates one of the psychological biases that can cause people to approach the same problem in very different ways. Understanding these biases can help one see problems more clearly.
Is economic inequality too big a risk?
Does economic inequality provide incentives for success? Does it introduce instability into the financial system? A political scientist and an economist discuss how inequality affects government, markets, and the risks faced by ordinary people.
