It’s the Thought that Counts (sometimes)
My first post for the Chicago Booth website has just gone up and I wanted to share the link — it’s called Using Behavioral Science To Pick The Perfect Holiday Gift. It’s on research by Yan Zhang and...
View ArticleThe Science of Gifts
Source: Jason Ford for The Boston Globe Is it possible to get gifts down to a science? With gift giving season upon us, there has been a flood of advice for consumers on how to navigate their purchases...
View ArticleNarrowing the Achievement Gap with a Psychological Intervention
Important!This is a re-post of a story originally published as a guest blog at Scientific American MIND. Thanks to @BoraZ and @iwickelgren for their hospitality. Image courtesy of Alex de Carvalho...
View ArticlePaul Rozin on Music, Food, and Sex
Paul Rozin I’m not sure how it’s possible that until yesterday I had never seen Paul Rozin speak. However it happened, I corrected a huge mistake by going to see him give an invited address at the...
View ArticleThe Psychology of Nothing: Phantom Symptoms
“The Heart Attack” Season 2, Episode 10 Lovable anti-hero George Costanza is having a salad for lunch when he suddenly clutches at his chest and declares, “I think I’m having a heart attack!” His...
View ArticleNarrative Transportation
This is a draft of an article I submitted to Nautilus Magazine, a “new magazine on science, culture, and philosophy,” for their issue entitled In Transit. Nautilus already had plans to cover the...
View ArticleOdysseus Nudged: Some more thoughts
I wrote a piece for Big Think that came out on Monday and there were some additional thoughts that I wanted to share that didn’t make it into the original article. If you’ve already read the piece,...
View ArticlePay Now Consume Later
This is a re-posting of my article from earlier today on my new blog at Big Think. As of this morning Random Assignment has a new home-away-from-home which you can visit here, but I’ll continue to post...
View ArticleExpecting Better
My friend and colleague Emily Oster’s new book, Expecting Better, came out last week. She dives into the data behind what your doctors and friends tell you about pregnancy and gives you the...
View ArticleThe Secret Costs of Keeping Secrets
Photo credit: Sarah Horrigan via Flickr My first post for Nautilus’ blog, Facts so Romantic, is on new research by Clayton Critcher and Melissa Ferguson, about the costs of keeping secrets. The...
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