You and Your Irrational Brain
An Evening of Experimentation Under the Stars
An Evening of Experimentation Under the Stars
Thursday, May 29, 2008, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
In this special presentation of WNYC’s popular show Radio Lab, behavioral economist Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, joined science writer Jonah Lehrer and program hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich to explore the often surprising factors which motivate and dictate human behavior. Why for example are people generally more comfortable stealing pencils from work than money from a petty cash box? And what does this tell us about the degree to which human decision-making is based upon irrational thinking?
The event combined discussion with live group experiments, games and demonstrations that test the ideas in Ariely's book, and was followed by food, drink and music under the stars.
Participants:
Jad Abumrad is the host and creator of WNYC/NPR's award-winning radio series Radio Lab, which reaches nearly 4 million people per month and describes itself as believing “your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.”
Dan Ariely studies people’s irrational behavior in the marketplace. He is the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, author of the book Predictably Irrational, and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Robert Krulwich is an award-winning radio and television journalist who has been called ‘the most inventive network reporter in television’ by TV Guide. He is an ABC News correspondent, NPR science correspondent, and co-host of WNYC's science documentary program, Radio Lab.
Jonah Lehrer is an editor-at-large for Seed Magazine and has written articles for Nature, New Scientist, and the MIT Technology Review. A neuroscientist by training, he is also the author of Proust was a Neuroscientist.
