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Cognitive
Richard Thaler and the Rise of Behavioral Economics
March 2, 2018
The emergence of behavioral economics is one of the most significant conceptual developments in the social sciences in the past 40 years. The central figure in the field in its early years was Richard Thaler. In this article, I review and discuss his scientific contributions.
March 2, 2018
The emergence of behavioral economics is one of the most significant conceptual developments in the social sciences in the past 40 years. The central figure in the field in its early years was Richard Thaler. In this article, I review and discuss his scientific contributions.
Empirical Study Reveals 14 Key Components of Creativity
February 26, 2018
In a world where robots seem to be taking over the world, the hottest buzzword amongst recruiters is “creative.” In every field, employers are desperately searching for “highly creative” human candidates. But ask recruiters and employers what constitutes creativity—and how they will recognize a creative person—and they are flummoxed. The 14 key components of creativity were identified as: Active Involvement and Persistence: Comfort with Uncertainty: Domain Competence: ...
February 26, 2018
In a world where robots seem to be taking over the world, the hottest buzzword amongst recruiters is “creative.” In every field, employers are desperately searching for “highly creative” human candidates. But ask recruiters and employers what constitutes creativity—and how they will recognize a creative person—and they are flummoxed. The 14 key components of creativity were identified as: Active Involvement and Persistence: Comfort with Uncertainty: Domain Competence: ...
Behavioral Law & Economics
February 19, 2018
Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) has posted The Proper Scope of Behavioral Law and Economics on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Behavioral law and economics applies the conceptual tools of behavioral economics to the analysis of legal problems and legal intervention. These models, and the experiments to test them, assume an institution free state of nature. In modern societies, the law’s subjects never see this state of nature. However, a rich arrangement...
February 19, 2018
Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) has posted The Proper Scope of Behavioral Law and Economics on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Behavioral law and economics applies the conceptual tools of behavioral economics to the analysis of legal problems and legal intervention. These models, and the experiments to test them, assume an institution free state of nature. In modern societies, the law’s subjects never see this state of nature. However, a rich arrangement...
The Mistakes You Make in a Meeting’s First Milliseconds
February 16, 2018
A growing body of research shows the snap judgments people make about others’ trustworthiness are wrong more often than most people think. These first impressions are formed in milliseconds, based on instinctive responses in the brain’s emotion-processing center, the amygdala. Some people conclude a stranger is reliable because he or she looks like someone trustworthy the person already knows, says Alexander Todorov, a leading researcher and author of a 2017 book on the topic, “Face Value:...
February 16, 2018
A growing body of research shows the snap judgments people make about others’ trustworthiness are wrong more often than most people think. These first impressions are formed in milliseconds, based on instinctive responses in the brain’s emotion-processing center, the amygdala. Some people conclude a stranger is reliable because he or she looks like someone trustworthy the person already knows, says Alexander Todorov, a leading researcher and author of a 2017 book on the topic, “Face Value:...
Behavioral Probability
February 8, 2018
Throughout their long history, humans have worked hard to tame chance. They adapted to their uncertain physical and social...
February 8, 2018
Throughout their long history, humans have worked hard to tame chance. They adapted to their uncertain physical and social...
A Neuro-Linguist’s Toolbox – A Starting Point and Building Rapport
February 6, 2018
What can one pace? Most of us seek to establish commonality via content. We will talk to someone and make a connection through the people we know, the schools we have attended, the books we have read, the places we have lived, the experiences we’ve had, etc. And that is absolutely fine. Content-based rapport is useful in social settings where we have the luxury of time to explore these matters. However, there are many other aspects of the human “be-ing” (again misspelling deliberate) that...
February 6, 2018
What can one pace? Most of us seek to establish commonality via content. We will talk to someone and make a connection through the people we know, the schools we have attended, the books we have read, the places we have lived, the experiences we’ve had, etc. And that is absolutely fine. Content-based rapport is useful in social settings where we have the luxury of time to explore these matters. However, there are many other aspects of the human “be-ing” (again misspelling deliberate) that...
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts
February 4, 2018
Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result. In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a hand off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history....
February 4, 2018
Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result. In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a hand off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history....
Force Overtime? Or Go for the Win?
February 4, 2018
Most other National Football League teams behave this way, too. In research to be published in the forthcoming issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we examined every instance over a recent 10-year period in which N.F.L. teams faced a choice in the final minutes between kicking an extra point to tie the game or going for a 2-point conversion to win. The teams overwhelmingly chose to avoid the risk of immediate defeat: Of the 47 times teams faced this situation, they opted...
February 4, 2018
Most other National Football League teams behave this way, too. In research to be published in the forthcoming issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we examined every instance over a recent 10-year period in which N.F.L. teams faced a choice in the final minutes between kicking an extra point to tie the game or going for a 2-point conversion to win. The teams overwhelmingly chose to avoid the risk of immediate defeat: Of the 47 times teams faced this situation, they opted...
Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Machine Learning Will Revolutionize the Practice of Law. Part One. [VIDEO]
February 3, 2018
Studies have shown that physicians are correct in their diagnoses about 50% of the time. The increasing sophistication and utilization of artificial intelligence has the potential to drastically improve medicine by aggregating patient information and data, which will allow for more accurate diagnoses more often. A similar application of artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize and improve a number of other fields as well. See Ross Fishman, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data,...
February 3, 2018
Studies have shown that physicians are correct in their diagnoses about 50% of the time. The increasing sophistication and utilization of artificial intelligence has the potential to drastically improve medicine by aggregating patient information and data, which will allow for more accurate diagnoses more often. A similar application of artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize and improve a number of other fields as well. See Ross Fishman, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data,...
Towards a Rational Explanation for Anchoring
January 28, 2018
Built upon statistics insights, we illustrate that Bayesian decision theory combined with a non-informative prior may lead to a strictly dominated decision rule, which can be improved by shrinking the decision towards an arbitrary-chosen reference point. By doing so, one incurs a bias but reduces the variance of the decision and decreases the expected loss. This revelation suggests that anchoring may have a rational explanation. The examination of the known features of the anchoring effect provides...
January 28, 2018
Built upon statistics insights, we illustrate that Bayesian decision theory combined with a non-informative prior may lead to a strictly dominated decision rule, which can be improved by shrinking the decision towards an arbitrary-chosen reference point. By doing so, one incurs a bias but reduces the variance of the decision and decreases the expected loss. This revelation suggests that anchoring may have a rational explanation. The examination of the known features of the anchoring effect provides...
