Why We’re Loving It: The Psychology Behind the McDonald’s Restaurant of the Future
Insights into the innovative behavioural design that underpins McDonald’s reinvention.
Behavioural Science, Rationality and Public Policy
The language of rationality is closely tied to ideas from behavioural science, economics and nudge theory, but how does it shape the way we make public policy and should we be casting it under a critical eye? Read this post to find out more.
What is the Future of Behavioral Research and Large-scale Nudges? Five Practical Tips
By Nathan Maddix Can Nudging Overcome Physics Envy? As is now well-known, tremendous results have been found for nudges – behavioral interventions designed to facilitate choice for welfare-promoting outcomes. In my work over the last 5 years, I have sought not only to design and administer nudges, but also to understand how economists and [...]
Changing Your Mind
Changing one’s mind is a difficult, painful process. What kind of appeals are effective at changing the minds of others? How can you work on evaluating information objectively, such that you would reconsider your previous ideas?
What Do We Know about Trust?
Every year, millions of people invest money in projects they may not fully understand and, by choosing to do so, they reveal one of the most important values that holds our society and our economy together: trust. What do we know about trust? Read this post to find out.
Myopic Loss Aversion: A Behavioral Answer to the Equity Premium Puzzle?
Stocks yield much higher returns than bonds and other riskless securities. In fact, in the last 100 years US equities have seen an 8% average annual real return, compared to only a 1% return for more riskless securities. This gap is called the equity premium puzzle – why are equities valued so much higher than securities? One behavioral theory attributes the equity premium puzzle to what’s known as myopic loss aversion (MLA) – the idea that loss-averse investors (as all investors are) take too short-term a view of their investments, leading them to react overly negatively to short-term losses. We designed the first natural field experimental evidence to show that MLA exists for professional traders.
Information Avoidance in the Information Age
Ignorance is bliss: How much would you pay to avoid threatening information?
Retirement Planning, Psychology, and Behavioral Economics
Planning our retirement is an endeavour we need to undertake sooner or later. A well thought-out pension plan must be able to ensure our well-being during a long period of professional inactivity. However, a striking finding is that people do not save enough for their retirement. They have difficulties to design a retirement plan tailored to their needs and end up with an insufficient pension income and an impoverished lifestyle. Behavioural economics has pointed out some of the problems that affect retirement planning.
How Donald Trump Won the Election: A Behavioral Economics Explanation
By Tim Gohmann While the media focused on Donald Trump’s denigration of women, war heroes, Latinos and Muslims, Trump was building not just support but commitment from his core target — working-class, non-college–educated white males — to get out and vote. What was juvenile and embarrassing to the intellectual was the “silver bullet” that [...]
Behavioral Science and Corporate Decision-Making: Potential for Improvement?
Applications of behavioural knowledge could play a crucial role in improving corporate decision-making