Dan Ariely, James B. Duke professor of psychology and behavioral economics, has pioneered research on the irrational ways that we behave and make decisions. Ariely sat down with The Chronicle to discuss his career, research projects and his advice for current undergraduates. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Chronicle: Why did you choose to come to North Carolina from Israel to continue your studies, and why did you choose to return to Duke after 10 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
Dan Ariely: I have to say this was not the most rational choice. I did not make a long list of costs and benefits, but a couple of my professors at Tel Aviv University went to [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] and got their Ph.D.s from there. They told me about that with such warmth, and I used the strategy of word of mouth rather than looking and doing lots of research in trying to figure out what’s the best. I followed their advice and came to UNC.
I got my master’s at UNC and then I moved to Duke. Without telling anybody, I kept on [studying] at UNC. I finished my Ph.D. at Duke and UNC, and then I moved to MIT. I was there for quite a while. At some point, I felt like I was a little lonely. I wanted to move to a place that was more collaborative in nature. I wanted to work with people from other disciplines and as far as I can tell, Duke is one of the most collaborative places there is.
I officially moved here in 2008. I have to say that the cross-pollination and collaborative nature of [Duke] has continued to be a source of joy in my life, and I am impressed with our ability to keep on working across disciplines. This doesn’t just include the University, but also the medical school.
TC: I am inspired by your TedTalk “Designing for Trust.” In an academically rigorous and competitive environment like Duke, how do you suggest we, as Duke students, create a community of trust to maximize our experiences here?
DA: There’s lots of things to do [to build] trust. One of my favorite experiments is the following: a waiter goes through a group of people. Let’s say there are four people. They ask the first person what they want. The first person says, “I want the fish’” and the waiter says “the fish is not so good today, why don’t you take the chicken, it’s cheaper and better.” And then you measure how much the people around the table take the waiter's advice, not just for the chicken, but for other things as well.
Condition number two is the same thing but the waiter says, “the fish is not so good today, take the lobster. It’s only three times more expensive but its really amazing.” And what happens now is people don’t take the waiter's advice, not the person who got the advice and not the rest of the people at the table. What’s the difference between the first waiter and the second waiter?
The main difference is in the first case, the waiter showed that they cared about the [person]; they are willing to give something. In the second case, maybe the lobster is amazing, but you would never know if the lobster was good for you or for them.
There is a really important lesson here about trust. A lot of times, we give people advice that’s good for them and good for us. I could be your banker and I could say, “save more money,” and you don’t know if it’s good for me or good for you. But there are many cases in which you could demonstrate that you care for somebody else at your own expense. Those are the cases that we need to take advantage of to build trust.
I think that at Duke, one of the things we do very well is that the faculty is willing to go above and beyond to meet students outside of class. I think that’s a really beautiful thing, and it tells the students that we are not just there when we are adhering to our academic duty to [teach] a class, but we care about them in general. We often ask the students what we can do for them not only professionally, about the class, but we show care for their personal lives. I think those things are wonderful at Duke, we might want to create more of these opportunities.
I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of care at Duke, between faculty and students, between administration and students, but we need to create more opportunities for people to experience this. The second thing is that trust is about long-term aligned interests. What I find is that there’s a tremendous bond with the alumni community, and that’s because we all see ourselves as connected. We need to get people to think more long term, about how much our individual welfare is connected to other people, where everyone benefits.
TC: What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your books?
DA: Time. One of the wonderful things about modern life is that we have lots of things to do! In my case, I could teach, I could work on research, I could learn new things about the work, I could read academic papers. There are just a lot of things to do. Books are just one of them, and I am continuously torn between activities. So, time is one problem, and declaring priorities and sticking to them is the second.
TC: The Center for Advanced Hindsight, the applied behavioral science research center that you founded at Duke, has been a huge success. Did you ever imagine it would grow so big so quickly—not only research-wise but especially with the lab collaborations, apps and online courses? Can you imagine what that will look like even just five years down the road?
DA: Yes, I have to admit that when I started the Center for Advanced Hindsight it was small, and every year it has grown. In fact, every time I get worried about the size, it gets bigger and bigger. I am tremendously proud of it, proud of the people who work at the center, of the people who collaborate with us, of the students who join us for a semester, year or sometimes longer.
What’s so amazing about the center is that we are basically a combination of the skills of the people who join us. Different people join us from time to time, and they have different passions. We try to the best of our ability to let people’s passion flourish. For example, Matt Trower joined three years ago, and one of the things Matt wanted to do was a comic book on behavioral economics. A few months ago, Matt and I published a book with his comics on social science.
I am very proud that we have the flexibility, ability and insights to give the people who join the center leeway to follow their dreams. What is so amazing is to see these dreams come to fruition. I am very grateful that I get to join those adventures, and through them, I get to learn lots of new things.
TC: Is there a current project you are working on at the Center for Advanced Hindsight that you are particularly excited about?
DA: I am excited about lots of projects! One of the relatively recent initiatives we had—we are always more excited about the recent things we do because they are just so new—is that we started working with different governments. The good thing about working with the government is that everything you can do with the government has a tremendous scale. If the government changes something, there are changes for lots and lots of people. We have a new initiative in working with the government; it is difficult and complex. There are some governments around the world who have people who are dishonest and complex, governments with corruption—it’s not an easy thing to do. But at the same time, it’s incredibly exciting to think that we can create changes at this scale in nations.
TC: If you could give advice to a Duke student, what would it be?
DA: I think what Duke has, which is rather unique, is that the faculty really do care about the students, and I think that we are willing to spend time working and mentoring the students. If you just go to classes, to the cafeteria, to the gym and do your homework that’s a perfectly fine way to pass your time at Duke. But if you really want to get the most out of it, I think that the best way is to try to get involved in research.
Find a professor that you like and try to learn from them in a hands-on experience [about] how they do their research. It’s not just about social science, it can be anywhere—history, literature, engineering, data science, health. The benefit of being [at] a very good research institution where the faculty care about the students is that you can have a unique opportunity to learn fast about how data is being gathered and analyzed, how information is being accumulated. I think being part of the journey, even to a small degree or even in a semester, is the way to make a difference between a standard education and an educational education.
Iris Liang contributed reporting.
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