Quotes About Behavior

However, when the subjects were placed in a positive mood—induced by watching a five-minute video segment—they became three times more likely to say that they would push the man off the bridge. Whether we regard "Thou shalt not kill" as an absolute principle or are willing to kill one stranger to save five should reflect our deepest values. Yet our choice seems to depend on what video clip we have just watched.

Simple, common gestures can also unconsciously influence our thoughts and feelings.

Inconsistencies reduce the ease of our thoughts and the clarity of our feelings.

Betty is much more likely to take her chances, as others do when faced with very bad options. As

The law of least effort is operating here. He will think as little as possible.

Groups can go in all sorts of directions, depending in part on factors that should be irrelevant. Who speaks first, who speaks last, who speaks with confidence, who is wearing black, who is seated next to whom, who smiles or frowns or gestures at the right moment—all these factors, and many more, affect outcomes.

the idea of money primes individualism: a reluctance to be involved with others, to depend on others, or to accept demands from others.

The conclusion is straightforward: self-control requires attention and effort. Another way of saying this is that controlling thoughts and behaviors is one of the tasks that System 2 performs.

Systematic errors are known as biases

an accurate diagnosis may suggest an intervention to limit the damage that bad judgments and choices often cause.

Irrational is a strong word, which connotes impulsivity, emotionality, and a stubborn resistance to reasonable argument.

The evidence presents a profound challenge to the idea that humans have consistent preferences and know how to maximize them, a cornerstone of the rational-agent model. An inconsistency is built into the design of our minds.

System 1 runs automatically and System 2 is normally in a comfortable low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged. System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2: impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. If endorsed by System 2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary actions. When

Many individual investors lose consistently by trading, an achievement that a dart-throwing chimp could not match.

Social scientists in the 1970s broadly accepted two ideas about human nature. First, people are generally rational, and their thinking is normally sound. Second, emotions such as fear, affection, and hatred explain most of the occasions on which people depart from rationality.

To a psychologist, it is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that their tastes are anything but stable. Our two disciplines seemed to be studying different species, which the behavioral economist Richard Thaler later dubbed Econs and Humans.

He weighs losses about twice as much as gains, which is normal.

La gente que está cognitivamente ocupada3 es más probable que haga elecciones egoístas, use un lenguaje sexista y emita juicios superficiales en situaciones sociales.

The "Florida effect" involves two stages of priming. First, the set of words primes thoughts of old age, though the word old is never mentioned; second, these thoughts prime a behavior, walking slowly, which is associated with old age. All this happens without any awareness.

The sunk-cost fallacy keeps people for too long in poor jobs, unhappy marriages, and unpromising research projects. I have often observed young scientists struggling to salvage a doomed project when they would be better advised to drop it and start a new one. Fortunately, research suggests that at least in some contexts the fallacy can be overcome. The

people expect to have stronger emotional reactions (including regret) to an outcome that is produced by action than to the same outcome when it is produced by inaction. This

Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk

Losses are weighted about twice as much as gains in several contexts:

I am generally not optimistic about the potential for personal control of biases, but this is an exception.