Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles
Page 8
—JULIANNE
The right question, I think, isn’t what’s the proportion of our irrational decisions—it is about their impact on our life and well-being. Think about something like texting and driving. Perhaps we do it only 3 percent of the time, but each of these instances could kill us and other people. So what we really need to ask ourselves isn’t about the proportion of our irrational behaviors but about the extent to which such irrational behaviors can harm us, those around us, and society in general. When we think about our behaviors this way, it seems to me that the impact of our collective irrational decisions on our lives is very very large.
Decisions, Mistakes, Regret
ON “HELPING” PEOPLE RETIRE
Dear Dan,
What is the best way to make sure Americans have adequate funds for retirement?
—BEN
There are basically two ways to help people get sufficient money to fund their entire retirement. The first is to get people to save more money, and to start saving at a younger age. The second approach is to get people to die at a younger age. The easier approach, by far, is getting people to die younger. And how might we achieve this? By allowing citizens to smoke. By subsidizing sugary and fatty foods. By limiting access to preventive health care etc. When we think about retirement savings in these terms, it seems that we’re already doing the most we can on this front.
Long-Term Thinking, Health, Decisions
ON THE MORALITY OF CORRECTING MISTAKES
Dear Dan,
I just paid for yoga classes for the next six months, but the studio mistakenly credited me as if I paid for a year. In the past they have made many billing errors, but all of these were in their favor. Should I correct the mistake or just see it as the universe making things more even?
—A RANDOM FAN
There is no doubt in my mind that it is not a mistake. It is a simple case of the world restoring karma—my only question is, why did it take such a long time?
Honesty, Luck, Value
ON WHO WE ARE AND WHO WE WANT TO BE
“Well, instead of discussing the book we could discuss why none of us had time to read it.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
I have been on vacation for the last few days, and while reading your book on dishonesty, I have been wondering whether people behave more or less honestly while on vacation.
—JULIE
This is an interesting question, but sadly I don’t have any data on this topic. Nevertheless, here are a few possibilities to consider: One reason why we might be more honest is that while on vacation we might put aside some of our concerns about money. To the extent that the motivation to be dishonest is based on financial gains, and to the extent that we are less concerned with money, we might be more honest. A second reason why we might be more honest is that on vacation we are often in a good mood, and there is some evidence to suggest that when we are in a good mood we are willing to do a lot to keep ourselves in that state, suggesting that we are less likely to take risks that might spoil our good mood.
On the other hand, there are also some reasons to suspect that while on vacation people are likely to be less honest. One reason is that vacation takes place in a new and unfamiliar context, which means that immoral behavior in this atypical context will not have the same negative implications for how we perceive ourselves. A second reason for more dishonesty while on vacation is that the rules on vacation might seem less clear and easier to bend: What are the regulations for jaywalking? How much should we tip in Portugal? Is it OK to take the towels from this hotel in Turkey? This sort of wishful blindness can make it easier for us to misbehave while still thinking of ourselves as wonderful, honest people.
On balance, then, are we more or less honest when we are on vacation? I suspect that we are less honest. But I would love to be proven wrong.
Honesty, Emotions, Self-Image
ON THE VALUE OF SPLITTING CHECKS
“I like to sit facing the room to see if anyone seated after us gets served before us.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
When going to dinner with friends, what is the best way to split the bill?
—WILLIAM
This is certainly an important question as it involves the delicate fabric of friendship, social justice, and the optimal design of experiences.
There are basically three ways to split the bill. The first is for everyone to pay for what they’ve had, the second is to split the bill evenly, and the third is for one person to pay for everyone, and to alternate who pays over time. I like the alternating approach the most, the equal pay second, and the exact payment the least. Here is why:
If you take the pay-just-for-myself approach, every person must become a part-time accountant, identify their items on the receipt, make a note of the prices, and tally up their bill. To add insult to injury, this annoying accounting process comes at the end of the evening, and because the end of an experience plays a large role in how we remember the experience as a whole, it can cast a dark shadow on the whole evening.
Another approach is to share the bill equally, which works well when people eat (more or less) the same amount. But, again, contrast what it would feel like to end an evening remembering how delicious the crème brûlée was versus ending an evening thinking how annoying it was that Suzie ate so much more of the main dish, but paid the same amount.
The final approach (my favorite) is to have one person pay for everyone and to alternate the designated payer with each meal. If you go out to eat with the same group relatively regularly, it ends up being a much better solution. Why? First, getting a free meal is a special feeling, and this approach maximizes the number of people who feel that they got a free meal. Second, while the person paying for everyone ends up feeling worse about paying a large amount, the elation of the other people who got the free meal more than compensates for this increased negative feeling. In economic terms this means that the social welfare is higher. And third, the person buying may even benefit from the joy of giving. Let’s think about an example with two friends, Jaden and Luca, who are going out to their favorite Middle Eastern restaurant. If they were to divide the cost of the meal evenly, each would feel, say, 10 units of misery. But if Jaden pays for both of them, Luca would have zero units of misery and the joy of a free meal. And because of diminishing sensitivity as the amount of payment increases, Jaden would suffer fewer than 20 units of misery—maybe 15 units. On top of that, Jaden might even get a boost in happiness from getting to buy his dear friend a meal.
Taking all of these elements into account you can see why it is best for one person to pay for everyone and to alternate who pays over time. And what if you do not go out with the same exact group every time? Even in these cases I think it is worth it, because the increase in overall joy from using this approach is so large that it easily compensates for the occasional financial loss.
Friends, Food and Drinks, Spending, Emotions
ON STAPLERS AND QUARTERS
“When you lie about yourself, is it to appear closer to or farther away from the middle of the bell curve?”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
I was talking with a friend about one of your experiments on dishonesty in which people felt free to steal sodas and cookies from the “break room” but not the equivalent amount of cash. My friend said that in his workplace items such as staplers, tape dispensers, and so on used to be constantly taken from his desk. He then glued a quarter onto each piece, and no one has taken anything with a coin on it for five years. Does this fit with your findings?
—TONY
This is exactly the point. It turns out that we can rationalize lots of our bad behaviors, and the more distant they are from cash the simpler it is for us to rationalize them. What your friend has done by sticking money to the items is to make it clear that borrowing the office supplies without re
turning them is not just about the office supplies, it is also about stealing cash. And with this reframing he made the action more morally questionable in the minds of the potential thieves.
I love the application of this principle to the office environment. Now, if we could only glue quarters to stock certificates and other financial products, maybe the world would be a better place.
Honesty, Money, Workplace
ON TAKING TIME FOR EXERCISE
“I’m going out to get some endorphins.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
There are many people in my office who have a hard time focusing for even twenty minutes on their jobs. Nevertheless, they seem perfectly capable of exercising for long stretches, and amazingly they are quite persistent in their ability to focus and sustain long periods of physical activity. 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 my set of meetings, and by 5 p.m. was exhausted. I had a lot of work-related tasks that I was behind on, and I was determined to get at least some of them done. The problem was that I felt devoid of any energy. So I went for a run.
Ordinarily, I try to run regularly, maybe once every five or ten years. But this run was fantastic and it changed my view of running. I ran a bit, walked a bit, listened to music along the way. It was challenging, and I was quickly 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. I was basically shirking and feeling good about it.
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 the complex tasks that they need to attend to are more likely to take long breaks for exercise. Imagine that some of your coworkers took a two-hour break to read a book or watch a movie. They would certainly be seen as selfish slackers who are wasting time and not contributing anything to their organization or society. But because our social rules tell us that exercising is good for our health, it is a perfectly reasonable excuse to escape work, feel good about it, and get respect from the people who are left behind to cover for those who are exercising.
Now that I have discovered this approach to taking time for myself without feeling guilty about it, there is no question in my mind that I am going to go for runs more often.
Workplace, Exercise, Procrastination
ON MEMORY
“I’m not losing my memory. I’m living in the now.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
How can I enjoy life more? Every year, time seems to go by faster; months rush by, and years just seem to disappear. Is there a reason for this, or is the memory of time passing more slowly when we were children just an illusion?
—GAL
Time does go by or, more accurately, it feels as if time goes by more quickly the older we get. In the first few years of our lives, everything we sense or do is brand-new, and a lot of our experiences are unique—so they leave a strong impression, and remain firmly grounded in our memories. But as the years go by, we encounter fewer and fewer new experiences. One reason for this is that by the time we reach maturity we have already encountered and accomplished a lot. Another, much less happy reason is that over time we become slaves to our daily routines and we try fewer and fewer new experiences.
To see if this is indeed the case for you, just try to remember what happened to you every day during the last week. Chances are that nothing extraordinary happened, and that you are hard-pressed to recall the specific things you did on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . .
Given the importance that remembering our experiences has on our life-satisfaction and happiness, what can we do about this worrisome trend? Maybe we need a memory/experience app that will encourage us to try new experiences, point out things we’ve never done, recommend dishes we’ve never tasted, and suggest places we’ve never been. Such an app could make our lives more varied, prod us to try new things, slow down the passage of time, and increase our happiness. And until such an app arrives, how about trying to do at least one new thing every week?
Aging, Memory, Experiences
ON BOOKS AND AUDIOBOOKS
“I got tired of Moby-Dick taunting me from my bookshelf, so I put it on my Kindle and haven’t thought of it since.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
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 audio version of the book. 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 listening and comprehending spoken language was at some point for us. On the other hand, we learn how to read and write at a later age and we remember the difficulty of our early struggles with reading and writing all too well. Because of this difference, people associate greater difficulty with reading than listening, and as a consequence, we take greater pride in reading than listening.
My first suggestion is that you remember that this isn’t necessarily the case and that reading is not necessarily more difficult than listening. In fact the order of difficulty might be reversed. When I received your question I went ahead and purchased an audiobook and I listened to it on a long flight. For what it is worth, I found it harder to focus while listening to a book than reading a book. (I should also point out that the book I listened to was Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut, so this might explain some of the difference.)
A second suggestion is that you 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.”
If these approaches don’t work for you, perhaps it is time to expand 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 lead a naming revolution and help lots of people who listen to audiobooks feel more comfortable with what they’re doing.
Technology, Entertainment, Language
ON SOULS AND PASCAL’S WAGER
Dear Dan,
Out at a bar recently, I met someone who told me that he did not believe that people have a soul. I immediately asked him if he would sell me his. We ended up agreeing on a price of twenty dollars. I paid up, and he wrote a note on a napkin giving me his soul.
Now, I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I also can’t help but believe that there is an exceedingly small chance that a soul could have a much higher (maybe even infinite) value. So twenty dollars seemed a reasonable hedge. Did I pay too much? Or did I get a good deal?
—CAREY
Well haggled. Your logic here is reminiscent of what is known as Pascal’s Wager, named after the philosopher who figured that if there was even a small probability that God and heaven exist, and assuming that the afterlife is infinite, the smart move is to live your life as if God and heaven exist (because you would multiply the small probability by infinity, and the outcome would be infinity).
In terms of the cost, I suspect that you got a very good deal for three other reasons. First, discussing this trade must have been far more interesting than the usual bar chitchat, so if you value the quality of your time, the twenty dollars was a good investment even if it turns out that souls don’t exist. Second, you now have a great story to reflect on for a long time, which is also worth something, and most likely more than twenty dollars. And finally, you are now the proud owner of a soul.
But if all of these reasons don’t convince you, send me the soul, and I’ll happily buy it from you.
Regret, Value, Religion
ON SHOWING OFF THE PRICE
“Oh, great! Here comes Valerie to raise the bar.”
{Illustrations © 2015 William Haefeli}
Dear Dan,
I bought two different bottles of wine at a wine store that was running a “Buy one, get another for five cents” deal. The first one cost me $16.99, and I got the second for five cents.
Tomorrow I am invited to a close friend’s house for dinner, and I’m going to take one of the bottles, but which one should I take? Should I take the $16.99 one or the five-cents one, and should I tell him about the cost?
—RAGS
We’ve known for a long time that the more expensive a wine is, the more we enjoy it. However, the particularly interesting thing is that this correlation exists only when we know the price. When the wine tasting is blind, and we don’t know the price, there is virtually no correlation between the cost of the wine and how good we think it is (experts have a positive correlation even in blind tasting, but there are very few of these real experts, and even for them the correlation is very small).
Taking this into account, the first question you should ask yourself is whether to tell your friends about the cost of the wine or not. If you don’t tell them, then there’s no problem—just take the cheap one. By knowing how little you paid for the wine, you will enjoy it less, but everyone else will be just fine and maybe you should just drink a different wine. On the other hand, if you decide to share the price, I would suggest bringing the $16.99 bottle, and maybe even pad the cost a bit by including the expense of driving to the wine store and the value of your time. This way your friends are sure to enjoy your amazing wine.