As a behavioral economist, Dan Ariely studies how people actually act in the marketplace, as opposed to how they should or would perform if they were completely rational. His interests span a wide range of daily behaviors such as buying (or not), saving (or not), ordering food in restaurants, pain management, procrastination, dishonesty, and decision making under different emotional states. His experiments are consistently interesting, amusing, and informative, demonstrating profound ideas that fly in the face of common wisdom.
Dan is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He specializes in research in behavioral economics, describing it in plain language. He is author of the New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, and co-author of The Joy of Experimental Psychology. His work has been featured in leading psychology, economics, neuroscience, medicine, and business, and in a variety of popular media outlets, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, and Science. He has also has appeared on CNN and National Public Radio.