The New York Times reports that savvy colleges are enjoying a 25% jump in admissions applications, despite a lagging economy. The secret? Using proven principles from behavioral economics and consumer marketing sciences. ...
Category - Simplify Wisely
As noted at LiveScience, the ability to contribute to Haitian relief via text messaging is blowing the doors off previous donations: Text-message donations, also called SMS donations, are becoming increasing[ly] popular with...
I know it’s rude to bring this up during the holidays, but it’s not that dress or those pants that make our collective rumps look big. We all know we’ve gotten fatter, and it’s happened remarkably...
- Active Choice
- Adaptive vs. Rational
- Bias to the present
- Happiness
- Opt Out
- Self Control
- Simplify Wisely
- Social norms
Thanksgiving Tips from the Behavioral Sciences
In a Washington Post article, an interview with Dan Ariely led to the following tips for dealing with the potential food stuffage that seems to come along with Thanksgiving: Use chopsticks (or other difficult to handle...
The New York Times reports on the effect of choice architecture on tips for taxi drivers: The increase in tips, however, may have less to do with New Yorkers’ generosity than with the preset amounts suggested to passengers on...
I recently spent the weekend in California with my wife, sister-in-law, and niece. My in-laws have a Wii gaming console, of which I’ve heard but never played. Suffice it to say that I played more video games during...
The Obama administration is throwing some serious behavioral economics at our country’s savings problems, reports The New York Times. The new initiatives are based on a healthy dose of simplicity and ease of use. Mr. Obama...
Nick de la Mare over at frog design recently underscored the interesting distinction between tools and machines: While tools offer a clear linkage between user and task, the machine offers an advantage in functionality with the...
One potential element of healthcare reform is the provision of insurance exchanges, an arrangement designed to allow small businesses and individuals access to more affordable health insurance. A question arises, however, as to...
Peter Orszag trumpets the new Information Technology dashboard, a browser-based tool that brings the concept of transparency to practice around government spending on IT projects. Yesterday, the federal “IT Dashboard”...
