Dan Ariely
Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics
Discussion
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
Despite our intentions, why do we so often fail to act in our own best interest? Why do we promise to skip the chocolate cake, only to find ourselves drooling our way into temptation when the dessert tray rolls around? Why do we overvalue things that we’ve worked to put together? What are the forces that influence our behavior? My name is Dan Ariely, and officially I am the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Most of my time is dedicated to answering these questions and others in order to help people live more sensible – if not rational – lives.
I am also the founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, and a three-time New York Times bestselling author. My books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, and Irrationally Yours. My new book Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations is out today. It deals with the mysteries and the forces that motivate us, and the ones that we think motivate us, that actually do not.
Looking forward to your questions,
Irrationally yours, Dan
EDIT: -
Thanks a lot for the questions -- it is hard for me to type, so I did not write as extensively as I wanted to, but I hope that the main points are clear. I have to run now -- but thanks again.
Irrationally yours,
Dan
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Why does Snail #3 always win the Snail Race? 🤔 (people can't see the results before selecting)
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@nivo0o0 My guess is that this a kind of extreme aversion, where people don't want to pick the options on the extreme (1 and 4) so they pick the middle one. An experiment you can carry out to test this is to change the number of snails and see if they chosen one end us always being in the middle (more or less in the middle)
Thomas Dalton Combs
@tdaltonc · coFounder @ UseDopamine.com
@nivo0o0 There is similar effect when you ask people to pick a "random" number. They strongly prefer prime numbers, and almost never pick an even number.
M Snyder
@msny_36 · Developer @Codeglomerate
Hi Dan, in your recent reddit AMA you brought up the fact that people will often reject a problem if the solution isn't compatible with their ideology, using Republicans and Global Warming as an example.
Do you think the case of construction and manufacturing jobs in America is an example of this phenomenon. In that increased Government spending on infrastructure is an obvious way to create jobs, but it's antithetical to conservative views of reduced government spending.
I'm also heading to Duke this weekend for a Hackathon, I'd love to say hi if you're around!
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@msny_36 I agree with the link you are making between hating a solution and thus denying the problem. In general Americans seem to have an aversion to government spending on infrastructure -- and I am not sure why. But, it is probably one of the things we now need the most (and the invisible infrastructure of water and energy is in the most need of help).
Charles Kunene
@charles_kunene · Co-founder & Product Designer @Obaa
Dan, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Your book, 'Predictably Irrational' influenced much of my college life.
1. What cultural forces have you found to be most interesting to study and observe?
2. What role can behavioral economics play, at large, to inform decision-making at the policy level and possibly improve the laws we create?
3. On a personal front, could you have predicted the result of this year's election?
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@charles_kunene (3) I did not predict the results. And I am also not yet sure how the pools missed the outcome by so much. Did they not approach a good sample? Did people not admit who they were going to vote for? Did people change their mind in the last minute? I am not sure but we need to figure this out if we want to learn how to conduct better surveys.
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@charles_kunene (1) In terms of social forces -- one of the most important ones, is what other people are viewing as OK. Is it OK to use your laptop in a meeting, is it OK to be rude to people.... Sadly I suspect that as a society, what we are going to see more and more of and what we are going to start looking at as normal behavior is not going to be what we hope to see.
Theoharis Dimarhos
@theo_dimarhos · Marketing+Biz Dev at AngelouEconomics
Hi Dan! From your experience, what are 3 great ways to attract attention your product/create a community?
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@theo_dimarhos Not sure I can answer this question as you have it, but if you want to create a community you need to give people a way to express themselves in ways that they are proud of and want to share with close ones.
Thomas Dalton Combs
@tdaltonc · coFounder @ UseDopamine.com
@theo_dimarhos
1) Know your narative -- your "Why?" Poeple will seek you out if you help them tell a compelling story. Here's a great TED talk about that:
2) when you are bigger, and the media is talking about you, know your counter-narative. What is the Mr Hyle to your Dr Jeckle? When movements/products are criticised in the media, the attacks that take off are the ones that highlight the dark side of the story you're telling. Google is trying to organize the worlds information. What's the darkside of that? Well now they have all of the worlds information and the unique power that comes from that. If you understand the counter narative that the media will tell about you, you can be alert to it and prepare.
3) Write a lot of helpful comments on ProductHunt . . . I hope --> https//:www.useDopamine.com
Alex Hardy
@canthardywait · Former investment banker
Hi Dan, thank you so much for jumping into this AMA - I am a huge fan of Predictably Irrational and (Dis)Honesty, as well as a Duke Alum.
What are 3 books (aside from your own) you'd recommend someone read who's interested in learning more about applications of behavioral economics
Jenny Shalev
@jennyshalev · CTO/Product@ThinkUp🌱, Founder@StyleToGo💃
Hi Dan! I'm a co-founder of a positive mindset and motivation app. Many of our users say in reviews that the app is life-changing. Besides reviews, are there other criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of a behavior changing app? Thank you!
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@jennyshalev In general we find that what people say and what we do is not the same. This is why we like experiments about the behavior of people. If you can, think about what you would like to measure in terms of the ways people behave with your app. Maybe it is about the ways they interact with other people, confidence, sleep etc and try to measure these for the people using the app and for another group that is not. Ideally get a group of people to sign up for the study (maybe give them a free app for 3 months) and give 1/2 of them the app immediately and the other 1/2 6 weeks later and all along measure their outcomes (confidence, sleep, etc)
Thomas Dalton Combs
@tdaltonc · coFounder @ UseDopamine.com
@jennyshalev The question is always "effective compared to what?" My team and I think a lot about how to measure and improve the effectiveness of behavior change apps. One of the best ways to measure the effect of a treatment is to take small a random sample of your users and not give them the treatment. In the medical world that's called a RCT (randomized control trial), and in startup land it's called an A/B test.
It's hard to compare your users to people who don't user your app, but you can at least test the iterative improvements you make by rolling the new feature out to only some of your users and see if their self reports of mindset improve. Then you can see what is *really* helping users. If You want to be especially bold, you could give some users a slightly degraded version of your app and compare how they do to the users that use the full version of the app.
ThinkUp
@thinkupappteam · Jenny, CTO @ ThinkUp
@tdaltonc @jennyshalev Thanks for this comment! I wonder if you can trust self-report of users for the same reason @dan_ariely doesn't trust the reviews... Also there are apps (such as meditation) that it takes time to see any effect and it's hard to find what to measure, although these apps are widely known to be life-changing. I think maybe we can measure more unbiased metrics through the Apple Health app, like the number of steps for diet motivation.
Thomas Dalton Combs
@tdaltonc · coFounder @ UseDopamine.com
@thinkupappteam great follow up! @dan_ariely is right to be skeptical of self reports. Real behavior is always preferable. But real measures aren't always available in the real world. If you're making a diet app, for now you'll probably have to be satisfied with self reports of eating behavior - until we can automatically measure that.
And to @jennyshalev specific question "positive mindset" and "motivation" especially hard to measure directly - even in a laboratory setting. Though he may be able to measure "productivity" as a proxy of motivation.
Another real world consideration that can't be ignored: If a user doesn't *feel* a product working, they wont stick with it. A consumer app that isn't engaging, wont even get the chance to be effective.
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@sunny_jain1 Sadly we don't yet have good ways to increase willpower. Sorry. What we do know is that you can try to create good habits -- these by themselves don't improve willpower, but they make the need for will power lower. Basically, if you have a good habit you just follow your plan and you are not that tempted by all kinds of things around you.
Thomas Dalton Combs
@tdaltonc · coFounder @ UseDopamine.com
@sunny_jain1 The data on "willpower training" doesn't look good. But the good news is that by building the right habits into your life, you can consistently make the "right" choices. Some colleagues of mine recently showed that, with the right habit training, you can resist temptation. It looks like willpower, but it's just strong habits. https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/...
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@sunny_jain1 How to deal with temptation. How to sometimes avoid it, and sometimes to distract himself / herself. And this is most likely also good for his mother ;)
oty
@otymix · @oneTapVote | working on smthg new 🤐
Is behaviour strategy always a key factor of a product success ? or just a simple "nice to have" ?
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Dan Ariely
@dan_ariely
@otymix Always! If you don't think about what you want to your users to do, what actions you want them to take, and in what ways you will improve their actions / decisions you are very unlikely to come up with anything useful.
Thomas Dalton Combs
@tdaltonc · coFounder @ UseDopamine.com
@otymix I strongly agree with Dan. Consumer apps are nothing but a collection of user actions and habits. If your app is going to be part of someones daily life, it needs to become a habit. You can ignore the science and hope you get lucky, or you can use the science and make your own luck: https://useDopamine.com