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Applied primatology, Part Two: The Power of Freebies

September 29, 2010 in Green Barbarians

I have gotten quite a bit of feedback about my post, “Applied Primatology,” which was based on work done by the behavioral economist, Dan Ariely. Positive reinforcement works upon me in exactly the way it works upon all animals; therefore I have decided to write again about Professor Ariely’s work. I am rereading “Predictably Irrational,” and this time I will be writing about Ariely’s research into the allure of “free” stuff.

via Green Barbarians: Applied primatology, Part Two: The Power of Freebies.

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Applied primatology: Behavioral Economics, Dan Ariely

April 7, 2010 in Green Barbarians, Writing and Writers

I’ve been on a real binge of watching TED videos, and yesterday I watched one of Dan Ariely, who is a behavioral economist (in fact, I think he invented the field).  I read several papers of his while researching “Green Barbarians.” Ariely is the researcher who figured out that if you give people two choices of a commodity such as a magazine, or two choices of “Which of these photos of young men is more attractive?” they choose whichever option they prefer, but if you give them three choices, one of which is really terrible, and not really an option, they tend to choose the viable option that is the most similar to the really messed up option. Read the rest of this entry »

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