Carey Morewedge is an associate professor of marketing in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. These are his good things.
Good things to read.
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. Dan is an engaging writer who explains in simple language many of the judgmental and decision biases that even the brightest of us are subject to all the time. The book describes many fun and engaging experiments that have shed light into the common mistakes we make when making everyday and important judgments and decisions.
Mindwise, by Nicholas Epley. We constantly engage in mind reading. We think about our thoughts, others’ thoughts, and what others think we are thinking. Nick does a great job explaining the research on what kinds of mind reading we do well, and where our glaring blind spots lie.
How to Write a Lot, by Paul Silva. Writing has become a critical part of most professions, and is often a difficult challenge. Paul Silva gives useful tips on how to overcome the writers block that professionals and students often face.
Good things to watch.
Daniel Kahneman’s 2002 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “Maps of Bounded Rationality.”
Kahneman is one of the founders of the study of judgment and decision making. His paper with Amos Tversky in 1979, Prospect Theory, won him the Nobel Prize in Economics and served as the catalyst for what is now referred to as behavioral economics. In his Nobel acceptance speech, Kahneman summarizes his program of research on how we make judgments and decisions, whether mundane or important. The cliff notes version of this speech appears in the September, 2003 issue of American Psychologist, “Mapping Bounded Rationality.”
Louie (FX). Louis CK is one of the most astute modern observers of human behavior, and his show on FX is dark, honest, and deeply psychological. It deals with topics like death and social interaction on a level that is rarely scratched by network or cable television.
Planet Earth ( BBC). An epic documentary television series that elucidates the natural world by touring 11 different habitats on Earth, from mountains to jungles to seas. The end of each episode explains the lengths that the crew went to in order to capture each shot, which are often even in themselves stunning.
Good things to use.
A passport. Few things teach one more about the world and oneself than traveling somewhere other than where you live. Relationship experts also council that marriages benefit considerably from sharing new experiences. Research also suggests that we take more pleasure in the long run from experiences than from material possessions, and travel is one of the greatest wellsprings of experience.
Mint.com. Although several famous models of neoclassical economics suggest that money is fungible and people should make rational decisions with regards to their earnings, spending, and investments, keeping track of your finances is challenging even for people who study financial decision making. Mint provides helpful tools to get a clear picture of your financial health, allowing for wiser decision making in the present and for the future.
A good mattress. Pricing a mattress is truly an impossible task, but finding a comfortable mattress is one of the best investments you will ever make. You will spend one third of every day on your mattress (more or less). Do you want to spend that time in comfort or in pain?
Connect with Carey on Twitter, @Morewedge.
Three things to read, watch, and use 