Episode 14: Dan Ariely, world-renowned social scientist - a podcast by Our Friend From Israel

Dan Ariely a tenured professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. If an academic could be a rockstar, then Ariely is certainly one. His books – like "Predictably Irrational" – are New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has close to 200,000 Twitter followers. His numerous TED talks have been viewed 13 million times. Millions more read his advice column each week in the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times has called his research "revolutionary."

Following in the footsteps of his mentors – Israelis Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky – Ariely has become one of the world's leading experts in decision-making, which, in essence, makes his talent of enormous interest. Why do humans make the decisions that we do? Ariely translates what could be a ho-hum topic like behavioral economics into mainstream morsels of wisdom. He studies everything from income inequality and pizza delivery to dating advice and IKEA furniture. He's launched several startups and has invented technologies that were later sold to Google, including a time management app that the search giant acquired. On today's episode, we visit with Dan Ariely to talk about what he's researching now, a strange experiment involving clowns in traffic and how a new scale he invented may actually help you lose weight.

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