Applying Behavioral Sciences in the Real World
Mindy Hernandez
2009 Innovator-in-Residence
Washington, DC
Read Mindy’s Bio
Contact Mindy at
mhernand[at]Princeton[dot]edu
When I took my first economics class as a freshman in college, I learned that people make rational, profit-maximizing decisions with full information. I was surprised by this, since nobody I knew made decisions that way-- especially as a college freshman, my friends and I made irrational and deeply "sub-optimal" decisions literally every day. On multiple occasions I watched some of the young men from my dorm take pies (not a piece of pie but entire blueberry pie, pie tin and all) off the cafeteria dessert shelf and sit down to eat the entire pie. (Many threw up a few hours later.) What could explain their behavior? I could come up with a handful of reasons--peer pressure, competitiveness, gluttony, the unique stupidity of being 18 years old and far from home for the first time, but none of these explanations fit into the models we were learning in class… read more
A Conversation with Daniel Kahneman:
Professor Daniel Kahneman’s research into human behavior and decision making was critical to the formation of the field now known as “Behavioral Economics”. Less importantly to the world at large, he was also critical to the formation of the way I think about human behavior and applied psychology. He is a psychologist by training, but won the Nobel Prize in Economics with Amos Tversky for his work on Prospect Theory. I was lucky enough to be a student of his, and often when I think about applying behavioral research in the field I think of Professor Kahneman: WWDKD? (What would Daniel Kahneman Do?) So I called him up recently to ask him what he thinks about the increasing application of some of behavioral theory… read more
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Behavioral Economics in the News
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