The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
Page 28
Additional readings
Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin, and Michael Norton, “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness,” Science 319, no. 5870 (2008): 1687–1688.
Keith Epstein, “Crisis Mentality: Why Sudden Emergencies Attract More Funds than Do Chronic Conditions, and How Nonprofits Can Change That,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, spring 2006: 48–57.
David Fetherstonhaugh, Paul Slovic, Stephen Johnson, and James Friedrich, “Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 14, no. 3 (1997): 283–300.
Karen Jenni and George Loewenstein, “Explaining the ‘Identifiable Victim Effect,’ ” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 14, no. 3 (1997): 235–257.
Thomas Schelling, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” in Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis, ed. Samuel Chase (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1968).
Deborah Small and Uri Simonsohn, “Friends of Victims: Personal Experience and Prosocial Behavior,” special issue on transformative consumer research, Journal of Consumer Research 35, no. 3 (2008): 532–542.
Chapter 10:
The Long-Term Effects of Short-Term Emotions:
Why We Shouldn’t Act on Our Negative Feelings
Based on
Eduardo Andrade and Dan Ariely, “The Enduring Impact of Transient Emotions on Decision Making,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 109, no. 1 (2009): 1–8.
Additional readings
Eduardo Andrade and Teck-Hua Ho, “Gaming Emotions in Social Interactions,” Journal of Consumer Research 36, no. 4 (2009): 539–552.
Dan Ariely, Anat Bracha, and Stephan Meier, “Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially,” American Economic Review 99, no. 1 (2009): 544–545.
Roland Bénabou and Jean Tirole, “Incentives and Prosocial Behavior,” American Economic Review 96, no. 5 (2006): 1652–1678.
Ronit Bodner and Dražen Prelec, “Self-Signaling and Diagnostic Utility in Everyday Decision Making,” in Psychology of Economic Decisions, vol. 1, ed. Isabelle Brocas and Juan Carrillo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Jennifer Lerner, Deborah Small, and George Loewenstein, “Heart Strings and Purse Strings: Carryover Effects of Emotions on Economic Decisions,” Psychological Science 15, no. 5 (2004): 337–341.
Gloria Manucia, Donald Baumann, and Robert Cialdini, “Mood Influences on Helping: Direct Effects or Side Effects?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46, no. 2 (1984): 357–364.
Dražen Prelec and Ronit Bodner. “Self-Signaling and Self-Control,” in Time and Decision: Economic and Psychological Perspectives on Intertemporal Choice, ed. George Loewenstein, Daniel Read, and Roy Baumeister (New York: Russell Sage Press, 2003).
Norbert Schwarz and Gerald Clore, “Feelings and Phenomenal Experiences,” in Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles, ed. Tory Higgins and Arie Kruglansky (New York: Guilford, 1996).
Norbert Schwarz and Gerald Clore, “Mood, Misattribution, and Judgments of Well-Being: Informative and Directive Functions of Affective States,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45, no. 3 (1983): 513–523.
Uri Simonsohn, “Weather to Go to College,” The Economic Journal 120, no. 543 (2009): 270–280.
Chapter 11:
Lessons from Our Irrationalities:
Why We Need to Test Everything
Additional readings
Colin Camerer and Robin Hogarth, “The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 19, no. 1 (1999): 7–42.
Robert Slonim and Alvin Roth, “Learning in High Stakes Ultimatum Games: An Experiment in the Slovak Republic,” Econometrica 66, no. 3 (1998): 569–596.
Richard Thaler, “Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1, no. 1 (1980): 39–60.
Index
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A
Accessory Transit Company, 154
acknowledging workers, 74–76, 80
acronyms, 120
adaptation, 157–90
assortative mating and, 191–212; see also assortative mating
focusing attention on changes and, 159–60
hedonic, 160–84; see also hedonic adaptation
nineteenth-century experiments on, 157–58
to pain, 160–67
physical, 157–60, 161n
sensory perception and, 158–60
Aesop, 198–99
agriculture, obesity and technological developments in, 8
AIDS, 250, 251
airlines, customer service problems of, 142–43
alienation of labor, 79–80
American Cancer Society (ACS), 241–42, 249–50, 254
Andrade, Eduardo, 262, 265, 267–68, 299
anger, acting on, 257
author’s anecdote of, 258–61
driving and, 261
ultimatum game and, 268, 269–70, 273, 274, 276
animals:
empathy for suffering of, 249
generalizing about human behavior from studies on, 63
working for food preferred by, 59–63
annoying experiences:
breaking up, 177–79, 180
decisions far into future affected by, 262–64
annuities, 234
anterior insula, 266–67
anticipatory anxiety, 45
Anzio, Italy, battle of (1944), 167
apathy toward large tragedies, 238–39
drop-in-the-bucket effect and, 244–45, 252, 254–55
statistical condition and, 238–41, 242, 246, 247–49, 252–53
apologies, 149–51
for medical errors, 152
Apple, 120n
battery replacement issue and, 141–42
art, homemade, 89–90
Asian tsunami, 250, 251
assembly line, 78–79
assortative mating, 191–212
altering aesthetic perception and (sour grapes theory), 198–99, 200, 201, 203
author’s injuries and, 191–96, 210–11
dinner party game and, 198
failure to adapt and, 200–201, 203–5
gender differences and, 209, 211
HOT or NOT study and, 201–5, 208, 211
reconsidering rank of attributes and, 199–200, 201, 205–10
speed-dating experiment and, 205–10
Atchison, Shane, 140–41, 146
attachment:
to one’s own ideas, see Not-Invented-Here (NIH) bias
to self-made goods, see IKEA effect
attractiveness, assortative mating and, 191–212
see also assortative mating
auctions, first-price vs. second-price, 98–99
Audi customer service, author’s experience with, 131–36, 137, 149, 153–54
experimental situation analogous to, 135–39
fictional case study for Harvard Business Review based on, 147–49
B
bailout, public outrage felt in response to, 128–31
baking mixes, instant, 85–87
bankers:
author’s presentation of research findings to, 107–9, 121
bonus experiments and, 38–41, 51
Frank’s address to, 41
public outrage in response to bailout and, 128–31
bankruptcy, 129, 130
Barkan, Racheli, 39, 109–10, 299
basketball, clutch players in, 39–41
beauty:
assortative mating and, 196–212; see also assortative mating
general agreement on standard of, 203
Becker-DeGroot-Marschak procedure, 91
Beecher, Henry, 167
behavio
ral economics:
goal of, 9–10
human rationality not assumed in, 6–7
revenge as metaphor for, 124n
Betty Crocker, 87
Bible, Gideon’s conversation with God in, 288–89
blindness, adaptation to, 172–74
blogging, 65
Blunder (Shore), 117
boiling-frog experiment, 157–58
bonuses, 17–52
bank executives’ responses to research on, 37–39
clutch abilities and, 39–41
for cognitive vs. mechanical tasks, 33–36, 40–41
creativity improvements and, 47–48
experiments testing effectiveness of, 21–36, 44–46
Frank’s remarks on, 41
intuitions about, 36–37
inverse-U relationship between performance and, 20–21, 47
loss aversion and, 32–33
optimizing efficacy of, 51–52
public rage over, 21
rational economists’ view of, 36–37
social pressure and, 44–46
surgery situation and, 48–49
viewed as standard part of compensation, 33
in wake of financial meltdown of 2008, 131
brain:
judgments about experiences and, 228–29
punishment and, 126
breaks, in pleasant vs. painful experiences, 177–81
Brickman, Philip, 170
business, experimental approach to, 292–93
C
cake mixes, instant, 85–87
California, moving to, 176
Call, Josep, 127
cancer, American Cancer Society fundraising and, 241–42, 249–50, 254
canoeing, romantic relationships and, 278–79
cars, 215–16
designing one’s own, 88, 89
division of labor in manufacture of, 78–79
in early days of automotive industry, 94
hedonic treadmill and, 175
see also driving
cell phones, 7
in experiments on customer revenge, 135–39, 145–46, 150–51
see also texting
CEOs, very high salaries and bonuses paid to, 21
Chance, Zoë, 220, 300
changes:
ability to focus attention on, 159–60
decisions about life’s path and, 287
in future, foreseeing adaptation to, 160, 171–74
status quo bias and, 285, 286
in workers’ pay, job satisfaction and, 169–70
charities:
American Cancer Society (ACS), 241–42, 249–50, 254
calculating vs. emotional priming and, 246–48
emotional appeals and, 240–42, 248–50, 253–54, 256
identifiable victim effect and, 239–42, 248, 256
charities (cont.)
mismatching of money and need and, 250–51
motivating people to take action and, 252–56
Chat Circles, 225
cheating, 76
childbirth, pain of, 168, 169n
children:
in growing and preparing of food, 121
parents’ overvaluation of, 97–98
chimpanzees, sense of fairness in, 127
chores, taking breaks in, 177–79, 180
civil liberties, erosion of, 158
Clark, Andrew, 169
climate change, 251–52
closeness, empathy and, 243, 245, 254
clutch abilities, 39–41
CNN, 238
Coates, Dan, 170
cockroaches, social pressure in, 45–46
commercial breaks, enjoyment of television and, 181n
comparisons, hedonic adaptation and, 189
compensation, 47
changes in, job satisfaction and, 169–70
see also bonuses
completion:
employees’ sense of, 77, 79–80
Loewenstein’s analysis of mountaineering and, 80–81
computers, 233
consumer purchases, 185–88
happiness derived from transient experiences vs., 187–88
hedonic treadmill and, 175
placing limits on, 186–87
reducing, 185–86
spacing of, 185, 186
contrafreeloading, 60–63
Jensen’s study of, 60–62, 63
standard economic view at odds with, 62–63
Converse, 95
cooking:
children’s involvement in, 121
enjoyment factor and, 62n, 105–6
semi-preprepared food and, 85–88
CO2 emissions, 251–52
counting strategies, 282–83
Count of Monte Cristo, The (Dumas), 123
creation, pride of:
ideas and, see Not-Invented-Here (NIH) bias
self-made goods and, see IKEA effect
creativity, bonuses and improvements in, 47–48
Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály, 49
cultures, organizational:
acronyms and, 120
Not-Invented-Here bias and, 119–21
customer revenge, 131–51
against airlines, 142–43
apologies and, 149–51, 152
author’s experience with Audi customer service and, 131–36, 137, 147–49, 153–54
distinction between agents and principals and, 144–47
Farmer and Shane’s “Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel” and, 140–41, 146
fictional case study for Harvard Business Review on, 147–49
increase in, 143
Neistat brothers’ video on Apple’s customer service and, 141–42
passage of time and, 151
phone call interruption experiments on, 135–39, 145–46, 150–51
customization, 94–96
of cars, 88, 89, 94
effort expended in, 89, 95–96
overvaluation despite removing possibility of, 96
of shoes, 95, 96
D
Dallaire, Roméo, 255
Darfur, 238, 253
Dart Ball game, 23, 34
Darwin, Charles, 157
dating, 191–235
market failures in, 213–15, 216–17, 220–21, 230–32, 233–35
playing hard to get and, 104
standard practice of, 224–25, 227–28
yentas (matchmakers) and, 213
see also assortative mating; online dating; speed dating
decision making:
author’s medical care and, 284–88
cooling off before, 257, 279
emotions and, 261–77
gender differences and, 274–76
irreversible decisions and, 285, 286
rationalization of choices in, 287
from rational perspective, 5–6
short-term, long-term decisions affected by, 264–65, 270–74, 276–77
stability of strategies for, 261–65; see also self-herding