An interesting discussion in behavioral science is the nature of humans as decision-makers. There often seems to be an assumption in the literature that people are terrible decision-makers. Consumers, members of the public, and voters are seen as battered by a host of errors and biases. This is partly because papers showing people making a…
Category: Rationality
What Are People Like? A Categorization
Before designing any intervention to influence them it is worth asking: What Are People Like? Derek Ireland in The Behaviorally Informed Organization presents what he calls a Boundedly Rational Complex Consumer Continuum, the shorthand being the BRCCC. (I am unsure why he thinks that is a pleasant and memorable acronym. I feel that I may…
The Problem with Lay Rationality
I haven’t written about rationality for a while but I’ll return to note a recent paper by Xilin Li and Christopher Hsee. In it they look at the impact of lay views of rationality and raise a problem with such lay rationality. It is a fun paper and, broadly speaking, I agree that their conclusion…
Experimental Philosophy
Ruwen Ogien’s book — Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants –lays out a number of approaches to experimental philosophy. Much of the text involves descriptions of classic moral problems. These put to normal people and are often challenging by their nature. The most famous probably being trolley problems. These investigate what people think…
“Rational” Decision Making in Practice
Behavioural Economics (and related marketing research) has great potential for practical application. There are a number of things that people reliably do that cause them problems. So advice can help improve this. Presh Talwalkar has a book on improving decision making — The Irrationality Illusion — that offers some tips for making decisions more rational….
A Defense Of Enlightenment Thinking
Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now is a wonderful book. Pinker’s work is precisely the sort of thing that we need more of. I.e. writing from knowledgeable people able to see the big picture. The big picture in Enlightenment Now is about the biggest picture one can have. It is a defense of enlightenment thinking. The Enlightenment:…
Rationality And The Republican Autopsy
Political marketing is about giving voters what they want so one must have some notion of how voters think. With a colleague, June Cotte, I wanted to uncover how political marketers think voters think. The specific question we looked at was: “do political marketers think voters are rational?” What can we say about rationality and the Republican autopsy? Lack Of Clarity…
What Use Is An Evolutionary Definition of Rationality?
Eyal Winter’s book, Feeling Smart, is interesting but frustrating. There is much good content. Indeed, some of the stories are great. My biggest problem was the casual use of concepts. This was exemplified by the central idea of his book. He said that feelings/emotions can help you make smart decisions. I totally agree but the big problem was…
Understanding Canadian Electioneering
Tom Flanagan’s Winning Power is an impressive piece of writing. This is because it combines academic research with practical knowledge of campaigning. Flanagan worked for a variety of “Conservative” parties. This is in addition to being a professor which has given him great experience to draw upon in helping with understanding Canadian electioneering. Positioning And…
Confusion About Individual Rationality and Market Outcomes
Amongst marketing scholars there is a lot of confusion regarding individual rationality and market outcomes. There is also plenty of blame to go around for the confusion. Marketing’s Two Groups Who Politely Ignore One Another In marketing we have bifurcated into two groups. Psychologically trained scholars often suggest that economically trained scholars all believe in…
