Newsletter - October 2018

Behavioral Grooves celebrates one-year anniversary!

Kurt’s Reading Recommendation

I have a number of books that I’ve read or am reading right now. I will list out three: 1) Thinking in Bets by our guest Annie Duke – as I mentioned in the podcast, it is my favorite new book of 2018 (listen to our podcast with Annie Duke to find out more), 2) How to Have a Good day, by Caroline Webb who will be an upcoming guest on the podcast – a great book about how to use behavioral science insights in your life, and 3) The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt – Tim recommended this to me and it really is challenging my worldview and pushing me into new ways of thinking (particularly about people and their political views).

Tim’s Reading Recommendation

This Fall, a few books have crossed my bedside reading table Annie Duke and Caroline Webb’s books. Since Kurt has mentioned them, I simply want to say they rock! I’m calling attention to David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers. More a story of determination and grit than sheer luck or genius invention, the book details how the famous brothers worked tirelessly, sought support from other inventors, and continuously relied on good science to get their flying machine in the air. The message: good science is required, even if you get lucky.

Kurt’s Music

I am a music streamer and use Pandora a lot (to Tim’s constant irritation – note: most streaming services pay artists very poorly). However, I do like the variety that you can get and it provides me with music that fits my mood or activity. Recently I’ve been listening to “French Music for Cooking” when I’m in the kitchen preparing a meal – it is an eclectic mix of great tunes and puts me in the right mood for cooking!

Tim’s Music

There are so many new artists on the scene it’s difficult to make a pitch for any one of them, so I won’t. Here’s three: 1. Pauline Herr is trained in EDM (electronic dance music) but her work is cinematic and melodic in an almost romantic way. She’s based in LA and I’ve linked a track that is just lush. 2. Jain is a French singer songwriter whose songs are built on the shoulders of folk, jazz, pop, indie and EDM. Complex and deliciously loveable from the first play, Jain is an easy go-to for cool sounds. 3. Jason Isbell is not a new artist but I’m continuously amazed at his lack of fame. His tunes are sweet, country-ish and lyrically complex. A joy to listen to.

Podcasts

Available at iTunes and podbean, where we launch our podcasts from, are several new podcasts (please subscribe to the podcast to ensure you don’t miss any of them – we have a few more to be released in the upcoming weeks). We are especially pleased to have released three podcasts recently that highlight powerful women:

Annie Duke, the World Series of Poker champion, Sarita Parikh, who recently spoke at a Behavioral Grooves meetup, and Bri Williams, a leading practioner of behavioral sciences in Sydney, Australia.

We hope you enjoy them!

Behavioral Science Principles for October

Anticipated regret

The feeling we have when we have only a moment to take a certain action and can’t stop imagining how we’ll feel if we don’t do it.

Bounded rationality

A concept proposed by Herbert Simon that challenges the notion of human rationality as implied by the concept of homo economicus. There are limits to our thinking capacity, available information, and time (Simon, 1982). It is similar to the social-psychological concept that describes people as “cognitive misers” (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). (See also satisficing.)

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under- emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect).