Dan Ariely's Blog, page 24

Dear friends,

For many of us, email is a source of joy and stress –  we learn a lot from it, but we also never seem to be able to keep up with our inboxes.  And in today’s world, it’s likely that we’ll be using email more and more.  A project I’m working on right now is to try to better understand how we work with email, with the hope of figuring out what is broken and what we can do about it. 

My first step is to research how we currently use email.  If you’d like to help me by completing a 5-minute survey, please contact me at [email protected].  Survey participants will not only receive my gratitude, but will also be entered for a chance to win any of my books, a 30-minute chat with me, or $500. 

Irrationally yours,

Dan

Dear Dan,

I’m a physician, and it seems to me that people often stay in the hospital for too long. (One piece of evidence: Many more patients get discharged from the hospital on weekends.) Prolonged hospitalizations cost a lot of money and mean that beds aren’t available for people who need them. How can we change this?

—George

Think of three parties involved in decisions about staying an extra day in the hospital: the doctor, the patient and the family. All three would benefit from having patients discharged before the weekend: The doctors have fewer patients to deal with, the patients get to return to their loved ones, and the families can stay home rather than making one more hospital visit. Maybe we should try to make every day in the hospital feel like Friday.

Here’s a more concrete idea: Why not take one channel on the hospital’s internal TV system and dedicate it to people’s bills? The channel could present patients with real-time information about their bill, showing it rising with every meal, treatment and round of medication. It could also show the charges expected over the next 24 hours. My guess is that this change would spur people to leave the hospital much sooner.

Dear Dan,

How can we encourage people to eat less meat? Lots of people consider it cruel to kill animals and identify emotionally with vegetarians but still choose to eat pork, chicken and steak.

—Vered

Sadly, our choices—moral and otherwise—often aren’t the result of what we know but what we feel, and feelings have their quirks. In my field, there is something called the Identifiable Victim Effect, which shows that people can care deeply about a single, specific tragedy (such as the death of one Syrian refugee) yet care little about vast atrocities involving thousands or even millions of people (such as the Syrian crisis).

A similar principle applies to the ways we think about treating (and eating) animals. During a 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K., the authorities had more than 2 million farm animals slaughtered near infected areas. It was tragic for the animals, the farmers and the British economy, but the decision didn’t produce much public complaint—until one day, when newspapers published front-page photos of a cute little calf in Devon that survived the killing. That picture spurred a public outcry against the wholesale slaughter and, according to the Associated Press, may have helped produce “a change of heart by the British government” that ultimately helped end the killing. The abstract concept of slaughtering legions of cows, pig and sheep did nothing, but the adorable face of one calf made people sad and drove them to take action: the Identifiable Victim Effect at work.

So your best bet may be to wait for the ideal opportunity for a pro-vegetarianism campaign, ideally involving one particularly cute animal.

Meanwhile, you could encourage people to read Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals,” which describes in vivid detail the conditions in which the creatures we consume are forced to live and die. Reading it made it hard for me to even look at a burger without thinking about what happened to the cow that it came from.

Dear Dan,

What’s the best love note one could write?

—Peter

The ideal message would show confidence, deep desire, a capacity for romance and optimism about your shared future. With all these in mind, I’d suggest, “Would you give me the opportunity to sweep you off your feet?”

There is no question that email is one of the most important communication tools. It is also clear that it is a monster that is taking over our life and attention.

 

A few years ago in an attempt to reduce my own communication overload, we created Shortwhale (www.shortwhale.com), which asks the sender to classify the email before it reaches my inbox. Now, I am attempting to reduce email load and increase productivity further. Together with a fantastic team we created an email app (iPhone only at this point) that is aimed at helping people better manage their email-life and the related stress.

 

So far I have used an early version of the app for a few months and I find it very useful. We are now ready to open this app for a few more beta testers who are interested in helping us figure out ways to fight the email challenge.

 

Below is a short video of the email problem and our approach, as well as a way to sign up to test the app (link: http://newemailapp.com/).

 

If you are struggling with email and want to help us, please sign up – and thanks in advance .

 

Dan

And here is a talk I have posted before.  Some lessons about romance and love.  Some might even be useful.

Lots of love

Dan

 

 

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to [email protected].

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Dear Dan,

For some time now, I’ve been proposing different experiments at my company—experiments with the prices we charge, what we pay employees and the way we treat customers who call to complain. But the experimental approach that seems so successful for science bumps into substantial resistance within my company. Any ideas about how to make experiments more palatable in the business world?

—Darren 

Without knowing exactly why your colleagues are balking at the experimental approach, it is hard to propose a solution. But based on my own corporate experiences, I’ll assume that they are objecting to the idea that some people in your experiments will get better treatment and some will get worse treatment, which just seems unfair.

One of my colleagues at Duke experienced a related challenge recently. He asked a local urban high school if he could offer half the students a free lunch to see how it might influence their attendance and academic performance. In the spirit of experimentation, he wanted to randomly select which pupils would get the free lunch and which ones wouldn’t. The school found the suggestion repugnant: It seemed offensive to select some kids and not others.

My colleague waited a few months and tried again. This time, he told the school administrators that he wanted to give all the students the free lunch but could only afford to pay for half of them—and asked the school how to decide who would get the free lunch. And what was their suggestion? You guessed it: to pick the kids randomly. As this story illustrates, equity is a major obstacle to executing experiments. But if you can figure out how to frame them as fair, they might become more palatable.

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Dear Dan,

I’m a philosophy professor, teaching metaphysics and philosophy of language. What’s the best policy for penalizing students who hand in coursework late, with an eye on preparing them for the world of work?

—Andrew 

If the goal is to prepare students for life, I would start by creating a penalty system with a continuously increasing punishment—say, cutting their total grade by 3% for every day of delay. This largely resembles the penalties that adult life imposes: Even for things with very clear deadlines, like taxes, you can be late—but there’s a penalty for doing so, and the longer you wait, the larger it becomes.

Since you’re interested in helping your students more generally, you could also help them learn how to better plan their time. Students procrastinate, routinely and repeatedly, and they rarely seem to conquer this pattern. You could take a more active role in helping them create virtuous habits of planning and time management, perhaps by helping them break down daunting tasks into manageable sub-tasks and showing them how to schedule these in their calendars. Such ploys won’t teach them philosophy, but by dedicating some class time to such things, you might teach your students some important life lessons—and free up more time for them to read Aristotle and Wittgenstein.

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Dear Dan,

I’m a server in a New York City restaurant in New York, and I want diners to trust my recommendations and leave me larger tips. Any advice?

—Robert 

As soon as you hand them the menu, tell them that you strongly recommend they avoid the branzino special (or any other very expensive dish). By demonstrating that you’re willing to steer them away from a pricey entrée, they’re more likely to think that you truly care about them, trust your advice and tip you more.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

 

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to [email protected].

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Dear Dan,

I use Uber more and more these days, but I feel bad about using it when they slap on surge pricing rates, as they seem increasingly prone to do. Even with the surge rates, Uber is often cheaper than taxis—so why the mixed emotions?

—Wendy 

Your question contrasts two sides of pricing: supply and demand, on the one hand, and fairness, on the other. Surge prices occur when users’ demand for rides outstrips the supply that existing drivers can provide—at which point Uber adds a multiplier to each fare to encourage more drivers to work and, simultaneously, to discourage more frugal passengers from asking for rides.

From an economic perspective, surge pricing is a beautiful, two-front solution to this supply/demand mismatch. But it still feels unfair: When you take an Uber at the regular rate to start your evening and are suddenly told that the trip home will be three times more expensive, you feel blackmailed.

To think about the fairness issue, imagine that you’re very thirsty. The only lemonade stand in the area knows this and charges you three times as much for a glass. Something not too different took place some years ago in Brazil: On hot days, Coca-Cola decided to increase the prices in their vending machines. People hated it, much as you find yourself reacting to Uber’s surge rates.

This fairness question is central to Uber’s business model. For its long-term sustainability, it needs to handle the problem in a way that doesn’t feel unfair. Perhaps a loyalty program?

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Dear Dan,

My partner and I make a reasonable income, and we’ve been able to save some money over the years. We can afford to move to a more expensive neighborhood, but we aren’t sure if this is the right way to spend our money. What do you say?

—Paul 

I’d be cautious about moving to a pricier area. We tend to compare ourselves with our surroundings, and our happiness stems directly from those comparisons. If the people around us drive Hondas, we feel good in a Honda; if those around us drive Audis, our old Honda will make us cringe.

Moreover, we quickly become accustomed to the fancy new car and derive less excitement and fun from it. This phenomenon is called the “hedonic treadmill”: We continuously chase prestige, thinking it will make us lastingly happy, but we rather quickly revert to our pre-purchase level of happiness.

So you should be careful when trying to figure out the benefits of moving. Right now, you’re probably overestimating the value of a move; six months afterward, its value is likely to seem lower. As a practical shortcut for all this, you could assume that the value of moving is only half of what it seems right now—and ask if you’d still move. If the answer is still yes, go for it; if it is no, stay put, and look for other ways to spend your money.

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Dear Dan,

What’s the best way to improve the quality of marriages?

—Maayan 

The No. 1 enemy of relationships is being taken for granted. So I would set up marriages to expire automatically every five years and be renewable only if both parties opt in for another five-year period. Sure, this setup would mean that more people separate (you asked about the quality of marriages, not their longevity). But spouses would have to think more carefully about their partners, take them less for granted and thereby strengthen their relationships.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution to get fit in 2016?

 

I want to help you keep it – I’ve partnered with the podcast Only Human on an exciting new project called Stick to It! My colleagues at the Duke Center for Advanced Hindsight and I have designed a study running through the end of February that uses your smartphone to implement different approaches to get you exercising more and hopefully enjoy it. To sign up for the study, click here.

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to [email protected].

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Dear Dan,

Is it more important to floss or to brush?

—Ting 

It’s a tricky question. In terms of dental health, my understanding is that flossing is much more important than brushing—so if you had to pick one of the two, flossing should be your choice.

But we also need to consider which of these activities people are more likely to do. Here the answer is undoubtedly brushing. So even though flossing does more good for your mouth, brushing is what people are more likely to perform routinely, which makes it more important from a practical perspective.

The underlying issue is why we are so much more likely to brush than to floss. If we thought about our long-term well-being, we would floss regularly, but in dental care as in many other human endeavors, we often don’t act in ways that serve our enlightened self-interest. (We eat too much, save too little and so on.)

So why do we like to brush? In large part because the toothpaste industry has cunningly convinced us that to be socially acceptable, we must be minty fresh. Preoccupied as we are with our social standing, we wake up, feel the mint deficit in our mouths and immediately brush.

In essence, this is a case of “reward substitution.” The basic idea is that some actions just aren’t sufficiently motivating by themselves, so we create rewards for them that aren’t necessarily relevant but still get us to do what we’re supposed to.

Most of us brush not because we want to make sure that we have gleaming, healthy teeth in five, 10 or 30 years; we brush because we feel a socially driven need for that minty feeling right now. Brushing is really a delivery vehicle for mint. That is another reason we don’t floss: By the time we’re done brushing, we’ve got all the mint we need, and the hint of mint on the floss doesn’t add to our minty-ness.

So is flossing or brushing more important? I’d vote for brushing. It isn’t ideal, and we’re not doing it for the right reason, but at least we’re doing it.

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Dear Dan,

How can I make myself wake up earlier? No matter how much I sleep at night, I can’t motivate myself to get out of bed on time. I just lie there and ignore any plans for my morning. Help!

—Diego 

This is another case where reward substitution can play a role, because you need a different incentive that is more motivating. How about promising yourself that if you get up at the right time, you’ll get a cup of fantastic coffee, but if you oversleep, you’ll only allow yourself to have terrible instant coffee—or even prune juice? You could draft your significant other to be the controller so you can’t cheat on your little pledge.

Remember, reward substitution bypasses our natural inclinations (lounging in bed) by getting us to do the right thing (waking up on time) for the wrong reason (for love of fine coffee and/or hatred of prune juice). It’s a handy recipe for better behavior in many areas of life.

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Dear Dan,

My husband and I love each other deeply, but when we get home at night, we usually wind up on our computers until it is time for bed. How can we make ourselves have more romantic evenings?

—Helen 

Try having an eye exam with pupil dilation just before going home. For a few hours, you won’t be able to work or see anything clearly—and you will be forced to focus on your spouse. If this approach works, maybe you can simulate pupil dilation by promising to put on glasses with the wrong prescription as soon as you walk into the house.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

Dear Dan,

What is your New Year resolution for 2016?

—Catherine 

Setting up priorities. I get a lot of requests for all kinds of time-consuming activities very day. In general I try to be helpful, but there are only 24 hours of the day and I already don’t sleep much. So, in reality every time I say yes to something I also say no to other things – and my sad realization is that my process for saying yes and no does not lead to a plate of activities that fits with my priorities. So, in 2016 I am going to try and figure out what my priorities are, and then direct my time in a consistent way with my priorities. Now, I do realize that this experiment will ultimately fail, but I will at least give it a try. 

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, you can tweet them to @danariely with the hashtag #askariely, post a comment on my Ask Ariely Facebook page, or email them to [email protected].

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Dear Dan,

Why do I feel so good when I buy something that is on discount—or, better yet, on sale?

—Sarah 

Happiness is often a relative judgment about the distance between where we are and where we could have been. If we think that something could have been better, we feel bad, and if we think that something could have been worse, we feel good by comparison. So when we buy something at a great discount, it is easy to compare our situation to the alternative scenario of paying full price—and we feel fantastic.

The problem, of course, is that this type of relative comparison and its attendant happiness don’t linger in our minds. Once we start using our bargain purchase, we don’t think much about its price, so the relative happiness from the discount disappears.

To keep that bargain glow, you could remind yourself of the pittance you paid and the full price that you dodged, or you could realize that the joy of buying goods on sale has a short shelf life.

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Dear Dan,

As 2015 comes to an end, I want to start saving for my retirement more seriously. Could any tricks help me to move the saving needle?

—Teo 

Usually, saving is what we have left over after we finish spending—and because life is full of temptations, we often spend more and save less. One of the best responses is to eliminate the temptation to overspend.

Think of your 401(k). In a world in which people always make the best decisions, we’d sit down at the end of the month with our bank statement, see how much cash we have left and put as much as possible in a long-term savings account. In the real world, we’d probably save even less than we do now. So 401(k) plans take the money right out of our salaries, forcing us to manage with the leftovers. That isn’t ideal, but at least it gets us to save something.

For another example of the power of mindless savings, look to the realm of personal finance: The key to growing your money turns out to be putting it in a decent fund and forgetting about it. A Fidelity Investments study showed that the best long-term savers are people who forgot that they had a savings account. (Dead people with saving accounts have even better stamina.)

My recommendation: Try to think once about savings—the start of the year is a fine time for this—and set up automatic transfers that will serve you in the long term.

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Dear Dan,

What kinds of New Year’s resolutions are we most likely to keep?

—Elizabeth 

Probably vows like, “Drink more and better wine.” More seriously, the resolutions that are most likely to work guard us from feeling like failures. When we set up a rigid goal and miss, we are likely to tell ourselves, “I failed, so what the hell—now I can go wild.” On the other hand, when a single failure is just a minor disappointment rather than a badge of shame, we can dig in and keep trying. So this year, plan your resolutions with some appreciation of the likelihood that you’ll occasionally fall short.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.