How to Humble a Wingnut and Other Lessons from Behavioral Economics

By Cass R. Sunstein

In How to Humble a Wingnut, leading constitutional scholar, behavioral economist, and former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass R. Sunstein examines the unconventional impetuses behind human decision-making. Why it is that people often choose to behave so strangely? Sunstein’s incisive commentaries point to recent empirical findings to demonstrate how and why people convince themselves they are right despite evidence to the contrary; fear dangers they are unlikely to encounter; and ignore real risks. Mining developments in recent behavioral studies for tips on everything from holiday shopping and political biases to staying healthy and clear thinking in general, Sunstein nudges his reader towards that rarest of grounds—understanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Dec 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9780226147246

Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, where he is founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is the most cited law professor in the United States and probably the world. He has served as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and as a member of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. He is the winner of the 2018 Holberg Prize. His many books include the bestseller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler), Simpler: The Future of Government, and Republic.com. A frequent adviser to governments all over the world and a columnist for Bloomberg View, he is married to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

Book preview

How to Humble A Wingnut and Other Lessons from Behavioral Economics

Cass R. Sunstein

Chicago Shorts

How to Humble a Wingnut and Other Lessons from Behavioral Economics by Cass Sunstein, © 2014 by Cass Sunstein.

Information Cocoons © 2012 by Cass Sunstein

How Social Dynamics Made You Successful © 2012 by Cass Sunstein

How to Humble a Wingnut © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

Bacon Is Shakespeare © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

Republicans and Democrats Actually Agree on Facts © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

Why People Stay Scared after Tragedies Like Boston © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

Why Well-Informed People Are Also Closed-Minded © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

Check Here to Tip Taxi Drivers or Save for 401(k) © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

Super-Sized Americans Need the Choice of Fewer Fries © 2013 by Cass Sunstein

End of the World As We Know It and I Feel Fine © 2012 by Cass Sunstein

People Hate Losses and That Affects U.S. Budget Talks © 2012 by Cass Sunstein

Holiday Shopping Tips from Behavioral Economists © 2012 by Cass Sunstein

Stay Alive: Imagine Yourself a Decade from Now © 2012 by Cass Sunstein

All rights reserved.

Chicago Shorts edition, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-226-14724-6

Contents

Introduction

Information Cocoons

How Social Dynamics Made You Successful

How to Humble a Wingnut

Bacon Is Shakespeare

Republicans and Democrats Actually Agree on Facts

Why People Stay Scared after Tragedies Like Boston

Why Well-Informed People Are Also Closed-Minded

Check Here to Tip Taxi Drivers or Save for 401(k)

Super-Sized Americans Need the Choice of Fewer Fries

End of the World As We Know It and I Feel Fine

People Hate Losses and That Affects U.S. Budget Talks

Holiday Shopping Tips from Behavioral Economists

Stay Alive: Imagine Yourself a Decade from Now

Introduction

A little secret: Behavioral science is a lot of fun.

Here are a few prominent findings. If you take the average couple, and ask each member what percentage of the household work they do, the total number is very likely to be well over 100 (self-serving bias). About 90 percent of drivers believe themselves to be better than the average driver (optimistic bias). If you inform people that a product is 90 percent fat-free, they are a lot more likely to purchase it than if you tell inform that it is 10 percent fat (framing). If you ask people whether certain events (a tornado, a hurricane, a terrorist attack) are likely, they might well be mistaken, because they will ask whether those kinds of events readily comes to mind (availability bias).

Many people think about their future selves in the same way they think about strangers, but if you show people pictures of what they’ll look like in twenty years, they get a lot more interested in saving for retirement. It might not exactly be fun to find out that if like-minded people get together, they will get more extreme; but it is pretty interesting. It’s more than interesting (I think) to suggest that with a simple twist of fate, Bob Dylan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and the Mona Lisa would not have anything like their current fame, and that accident and serendipity play a massive role in producing both success and failure.

In recent years, there has been an enthusiastic popular reaction to books that draw on behavioral science, such as Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, and Duncan Watts’ Everything Is Obvious. (Richard Thaler and I have our

[nosajeel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very short collection of Sunstein's Bloomberg Views columns (he calls them "essays"), they generally focus on behavioral economics and the formation of opinion, with an emphasis on how groups reinforce each others views and ways in which information can or cannot help--the answer being that more information even if contrary gets rejected and strengthens an extremist worldview, while asking people to explain why they think what they do they become more humble and less extreme (asking them to justify their view does not work, need to focus on explaining). Also the columns have some of the more familiar behavioral economics around, for example, defaults. And all of it is catchily written and well tied to various current events and cultural phenomenon rather than just being abstract. A good short introduction to these topics.