Ariely predicts irrational behavior Economist recommends smart barhopping strategies

Author: Eric Bartolloti

On Friday, Oct. 3, Behavioral Economist Dan Ariely - the author of Predictably Irrational - spoke to students (and some parents) in Dana Auditorium about the "hidden forces that shape our decisions" in the marketplace.

Five things struck me about the first 15 minutes of his talk.

1. Before he was introduced, I mistook him for a "sound-tech guy" because of his jeans and black t-shirt.

2. He fixed a feedback problem by stuffing a sweatshirt over the microphone on the podium.

3. He ditched his microphone when the problem persisted and continued orating without breaking stride.

4. When a drape blocked the viewing screen in the auditorium, he enlisted an assistant to stand on stage and hold back the offending curtain.

5. He asked the audience if any of them were on anti-depressants.

Ariely's was the first lecture I have attended at Middlebury, so I am not sure how it compared to a typical presentation. All I know is that Ariely convinced me to put his book on my Christmas list.

If you did not make it to Ariely's talk, you missed a lot of jokes and also a great deal of sound advice. Summarized below are a few of his points, based on the premise that evolution is still working hard to smooth our brain's rough edges, that I believe are most relevant to students at the College.

How to obtain organs from your citizens?

If you ever find yourself running your own country, you will probably be facing a lot of new concerns, like making sure your hospitals have enough spare organs. So how do you ensure that your citizens consent to become organ donors? Ariely pointed to the discrepancy between countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, where less than 20 percent of citizens consent, and those like Austria and France, where the number is closer to 99 percent. The reason for this boils down to something as mundane as the format of DMV forms - whether an applicant must check a box in order to become an organ donor, or check a box in order to opt out of organ donation. As Ariely explained, organ donation is an emotional decision, which scares and paralyzes the person into resigning to the default option.

How to create a café chain that sells very expensive coffee?

We are all aware of the great success of the Starbucks franchise, but few of us understand how exactly they pull it off. First, they produced coffee of an arguably higher quality than other cafés. Then, more importantly, they fabricated an image for that coffee. They gave their coffee fancy names, flaunted the French presses and stocked the shelves with Euro pastries. Starbucks was not just a coffee shop - Starbucks was its own thing. People didn't compare Starbucks coffee to Dunkin' Donuts coffee because Starbucks didn't look anything like Dunkin' Donuts. Thus, people never stopped to consider whether Starbucks was worth the extra cost.

How to bar-hop and score dates?

This is probably the one that everyone will read first. Anyway, Ariely explained a test where a subject viewed three people - two comparably attractive people, Person A and Person B, and one "less attractive version" of Person A. When asked to pick the best-looking, most people responded, "Person A." The experiment was duplicated, this time using a less attractive version of Person B, and the second time subjects preferred Person B. The moral of the story: next time you go bar-hopping or clubbing, go with a friend who looks like you, but is slightly less attractive. Our irrational brain has trouble deciding between two comparable options, but when one is shown to be clearly superior to a third, it looks better overall, explained Ariely.

How to stop people from cheating?

Apparently, the College administration is already familiar with this one. Studies demonstrate that an honor code signed at the beginning of a test stops cheating more effectively than one signed at the end of the test. This holds true even at schools that don't even have an honor code, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ariely also described a "cheating window," or a range of acceptable cheating that humans hold for themselves. This acceptable range is relatively small, but irrationally stays the same regardless of outside circumstances, such as the payoff for cheating and the probability of being caught.