One of my favorite professors in undergrad was Bryant Shaw, chairman of the Troy Department of History. I gleaned numerous nuggets of wisdom from Dr. Shaw ("read broadly"), but perhaps my favorite was his take on knowledge: "Information is gathered within a discipline; knowledge occurs at the intersection of disciplines."
Thus, perhaps my favorite thing about classes at UAB's School of Public Health is the breadth of disciplines that cross over in my curriculum. I have been lectured by physicians and psychologists, by statisticians and economists, by chemists and engineers, by sociologists and epidemiologists. This semester we've been assigned a pair of behavioral economics readings, one of which I recently finished. Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational is a fun, quick read that explains behavioral economic theory in simple terms.
From the days of Adam Smith, economic theory has assumed one simple idea - that humans make rational decisions. For some reason it took centuries for economists to come to a different realization: we don't. Humans are irrational. This is why trans-disciplinary collaboration is so important. Psychologists have long realized that people are irrational (it is why the field exists). Anyway, Ariely provides some great insight into irrational decisions we make, and offers some solutions to how we can protect against them.
Ariely does an outstanding job of translating scientific experiments into easy to understand anecdotes, all the while preserving the meat of the research (A quick glance at a scientific journal reveals this is no easy task). His experiments range from the fallacies of supply and demand to alterations in our decision-making depending on our level of sexual excitement. His precepts could be quickly adapted to enhance a business's bottom line, but more importantly, they outline some important considerations when planning public policy. Ariely does an excellent job of weaving his story through the book, and I quickly saw myself in some of the examples he lays out. I highly recommend the book.
Ariely does an outstanding job of translating scientific experiments into easy to understand anecdotes, all the while preserving the meat of the research (A quick glance at a scientific journal reveals this is no easy task). His experiments range from the fallacies of supply and demand to alterations in our decision-making depending on our level of sexual excitement. His precepts could be quickly adapted to enhance a business's bottom line, but more importantly, they outline some important considerations when planning public policy. Ariely does an excellent job of weaving his story through the book, and I quickly saw myself in some of the examples he lays out. I highly recommend the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment