Choiceology with Katy Milkman

For many people, the start of a new year is an occasion to re-examine their lives, to set new goals and to give up old habits. Making New Year’s resolutions is something of a social ritual, but we see similar behaviors around other significant dates, as well--such as birthdays and anniversaries and the changing of seasons. And while it can be argued that all of these dates are arbitrary, studies s...

In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman , we examine an old insight about happiness and giving. It’s an insight that is now backed up by behavioral science. The episode begins with a scene from the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol . From there we hear from the founder and CEO of Charity: Water , Scott Harrison. When Scott turned 18, he moved to New York City and got a job as a ni...

You’re an independent-minded person. You make choices for yourself based on the best information available. You own your decisions, right or wrong. Right? No so fast. You are, in fact, a social animal. You take many visible and invisible cues on how to behave from the people around you—family, co-workers, friends, social media, even the folks in the elevator or on the bus. So your decisions and be...

Most of us would like to think we make decisions for our own good. Presented with the imaginary choice between a bag of salty, greasy potato chips and a healthy salad, you might opt, in principle, for the salad. But what happens when that bag of chips is freshly opened, sitting there right in front of you? Do you change your mind? In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman , we look at a bia...

Winning feels good. Whether it’s nailing a tricky golf shot or landing a big client for your firm, it’s nice to come out on top. But is it the thrill of victory that pushes you to sink that 10-foot putt or compels you to put in a few extra hours at work? Or is it the fear of losing that motivates you more? In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman , we examine a bias that affects the irrati...

Season 2 of Choiceology is coming soon! Dan Heath hands the reins over to new host Katy Milkman for this season. Katy brings an incredible depth of knowledge to the show through her work as a professor of Operations, Information & Decisions at The Wharton School . You’ll hear from sports stars, Nobel laureates and everyday people making life-altering choices, and Katy will share useful tools a...

Imagine you’ve just been through a major life event: The birth of a child. A major award. The loss of a job. A divorce. Now picture yourself 10 years in the future and try to imagine how that event affected your overall well-being. Research shows that—more often than not—your predictions will miss the mark. Why is that? On this episode of Choiceology with Dan Heath , we examine a bias that influen...

When you set out to buy something—a car, for example, or a laptop or some small gadget for your kitchen—you analyze the features and the style and the utility of the thing, and then you make a choice. But it turns out that there’s a psychological force that can influence what you’re willing to pay. On this episode of Choiceology with Dan Heath , we examine a bias that affects how you perceive gain...

Sometimes it seems as if danger lurks around every corner. News reports of events like plane crashes and shark attacks make grave risk to life and limb feel real and imminent. And while there’s no doubt that risk is a part of life, are these the types of events we should really be concerned about? On this episode of Choiceology with Dan Heath, we examine a bias that affects the way you perceive bo...

In a world awash in data, you’d think it would be relatively easy to make informed, objective decisions. But there’s a problem that gets in your way, even with all of this information at your fingertips: You see what you want to see. On this episode of Choiceology with Dan Heath , we look at the tendency to favor information that confirms pre-existing beliefs. The episode begins in Europe in the 1...

Imagine that you’ve put in effort toward a goal, but things haven’t quite worked out the way you hoped. Maybe your goal was more expensive than you expected; maybe it’s taking longer to reach than you thought. So the question is, do you double down and continue to work toward that increasingly difficult goal, or do you move on to something new? Do you fish or cut bait? On this episode of Choiceolo...

You don’t make decisions in a vacuum. Context matters, perhaps more than you think. On this episode of Choiceology with Dan Heath , we explore the subtle, sometimes hidden structures that influence your decisions. You’ll see how small changes in the way choices are presented can have a huge impact on everything from vandalism to traffic congestion to retirement savings. Tara Austin of Ogilvy Chang...

The Battle of Midway. Saltine crackers. Carnival games. What do these seemingly unrelated things have in common? Well, they’re connected by a common psychological trap—one that affects the way we all make decisions. In this first episode of Choiceology with Dan Heath, we reveal this bias and explain how it affects decisions, big and small. Jonathan Parshall tells the dramatic story of how it influ...

You’re not as rational as you think. In this new podcast, bestselling author Dan Heath performs forensic analysis on decision making. You’ll hear real stories, learn from top experts, and witness informal experiments that demonstrate the mistakes we too often make. Subscribe for free today to get the first episode automatically when it launches February 12. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company...