FULL TRANSCRIPT: Interview With Jean Van de Velde
Here is the full transcript of our interview with the golfer Jean Van de Velde as featured in the Freakonomics Radio episode “Why We Choke Under Pressure (and How Not To).”
It happens to just about everyone, whether you’re going for Olympic gold or giving a wedding toast. We hear from psychologists, economists, and the golfer who some say committed the greatest choke of all time.
Here is the full transcript of our interview with the golfer Jean Van de Velde as featured in the Freakonomics Radio episode “Why We Choke Under Pressure (and How Not To).”
You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done. The founder of behavioral economics describes his unlikely route to success; his reputation for being lazy; and his efforts to fix the world — one nudge at a time.
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Has our culture’s obsession with innovation led us to neglect the fact that things also need to be taken care of?
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We are in the midst of a historic (and wholly unpredicted) rise in urbanization. But it’s hard to retrofit old cities for the 21st century. Enter Dan Doctoroff. The man who helped modernize New York City — and tried to bring the Olympics there — is now C.E.O. of a Google-funded startup that is building, from scratch, the city of the future.
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Corporate Social Responsibility programs can attract better job applicants who'll work for less money. But they also encourage employees to misbehave. Don’t laugh — you too probably engage in “moral licensing,” even if you don’t know it.