Dan Ariely

Talk Description

Dan Ariely will discuss how the principles of behavioral economics can help us understand some of the irrationalities that influence everyday behavior, including the choices we make about pricing, the effects expectations have on our decisions, and the factors that cause us to behave dishonestly.

Biography

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the School of Medicine, and the Department of Economics; he is a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He is author of the New York Times bestsellers Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (2008) and The Upside of Irrationality (2010). Using simple experiments, Dan studies how people actually act in the marketplace as opposed to how they should behave if rational, examining buying, saving, food ordering, pain management, procrastination, dishonesty, and decision-making under emotion. He earned a bachelor's in psychology from Tel Aviv University, master's and doctorate in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina, and a doctorate in Business Administration from Duke. His research has appeared in The New York Times, the New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and he is a regular contributor to Marketplace on NPR.