How to change your behaviour for the better | TED Talk

Author: Dan Ariely | TED Talks Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight.

We all know that there's a big gap between where we think we could be and where we are, and it's in all kinds of areas. We want to lose weight, exercise more, reduce our plastic consumption but the intention behaviour gap is real.

The problem is that there's lots of things we know we could do, we could be very different, but we act in a certain way. And when we think how do we bridge that gap, the usual answer is, "Just tell people". But if that worked, no-one would be overweight, drive too fast or smoke twenty a day. 

Behavioural Economist, Dan Ariely, shows us how three concepts: using friction and finding the right motivations whether that is loss aversion or visibiliity can be used to change behaviour.

See the Dan Ariely TedTalk video here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_how_to_change_your_behavior_for_the_better

https://www.ted.com

Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He is the author of the bestsellers Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, Dollars and Sense and Amazing Decisions -- as well as the TED Book Payoff: The Hidden Logic that Shapes Our Motivations. He is also co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies.

Through his research and his (often amusing and unorthodox) experiments, he questions the forces that influence human behavior and the irrational ways in which we often all behave.

What others say

“If you want to know why you always buy a bigger television than you intended, or why you think it's perfectly fine to spend a few dollars on a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or why people feel better after taking a 50-cent aspirin but continue to complain of a throbbing skull when they're told the pill they took just cost one penny, Ariely has the answer.” — Daniel Gross, Newsweek