The Politics of Happiness, Part 3
…world views to explain the rest. Before I turn to my own explanations, here are two that I got from people I admire. Nobel laureate and Princeton professor Daniel Kahneman…
Do you see yourself the same way others see you? What’s the difference between self-perception and self-awareness? And why do Mike and Angela both hate fishing?…
Ellen Wiebe is a physician who helps seriously ill patients end their lives in Canada, where assisted suicide is legal. Is death a human right?
…world views to explain the rest. Before I turn to my own explanations, here are two that I got from people I admire. Nobel laureate and Princeton professor Daniel Kahneman…
…can get you fired. In the jargon of behavioral economics, coaches are “loss-averse”; this concept, pioneered by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, holds that we experience more pain with a…
What’s the magic income number? According to Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, it’s about $75,000, at least when it comes to day-to-day happiness. “As people earn more money, their day-to-day…
…Betsey Stevenson, Kahneman’s co-author Alan Krueger and Cass Sunstein all have senior government positions. Maybe they can figure out how to improve the nation’s mood. While the UK House of…
…you. I know this sounds fishy. Don’t drivers complain about traffic in poll over poll? Isn’t congestion a huge drain on our economy? Haven’t Daniel Kahneman (a Nobel laureate) and…
We’re working on a Freakonomics Radio episode about pain. One component is the very interesting research by Daniel Kahneman and Donald Redelmeier about how colonoscopy patients remember the pain of…
…minute when it read those words, or did it quickly skip ahead and fill in a blank? (Danny Kahneman writes nicely about this phenomenon in Thinking, Fast and Slow.) Once…
It is amazing how good we are — even the smartest, most rational people among us — at not recognizing our own biases. (Danny Kahneman memorably calls this being “blind…
Also: how can we stop confusing correlation with causation?
Jim Yong Kim has an unorthodox background for a World Bank president — and his reign has been just as unorthodox. He has just announced he’s stepping down, well before…
The left and the right blame each other for pretty much everything, including slanted media coverage. Can they both be right?
Levitt rarely interviews advocates, but the founder of the Good Food Institute is different. Once an outspoken — and sometimes outlandish — animal-rights activist, Bruce has come to believe that…
Advertisers have always been adept at manipulating our emotions. Now they’re using behavioral economics to get even better.
Jim Yong Kim has an unorthodox background for a World Bank president — and his reign thus far is just as unorthodox.
Also: would you take a confirmation-bias vaccine?…
Also: should you feel guilty if you don’t read books?…
Also: What’s the best way to handle rejection?…
Also: How do you recover from a bad day?…
When Richard Thaler published Nudge in 2008 with co-author Cass Sunstein, the world was just starting to believe in his brand of behavioral economics. How did nudge theory hold up…
You know the saying: “There are no shortcuts in life.” What if that saying is just wrong? In his new book Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math…
Why are great accomplishments often followed by disappointment? Is it better to win and feel bummed out than to never have won at all? And where was ping-pong invented?…
How is “negative reinforcement” different from punishment? Could positive reinforcement encourage prosocial behavior on a national scale? And what’s the deal with Taiwan’s dog-poop lottery?…
What is the cost of admitting you’re wrong? How can intellectual humility make you more open minded? And will Stephen finally persuade Angela that rum-raisin is the best flavor of…
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz combs through mountains of information to find advice for everyday life….
Why are humans so eager for magic-bullet solutions? Can you explain how a pen works? And how does Angela feel about being forever branded “the grit lady”?…
How do kids learn about money? What’s the big problem with education? And who made Raiders of the Lost Ark?…
How much can you tell about someone from the first few seconds of a Zoom call? What did Stephen think of Angie when he first met her? And: a special…
