BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

Jun 22 2025HEALTH

How Money Talks in Health Messages

Health messages can sway people's choices. This is not a new idea. People are more likely to take action when they see the benefits clearly. But how can health promoters make their messages more effective? One way is by looking at how people react to different types of information. This can be done by asking how much they are willing to pay for a service. Mammo...

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Jun 10 2025HEALTH

Who Benefits From Cash Rewards For Weight Loss?

A recent study looked at how different groups of people responded to cash rewards for losing weight. The focus was on adults living in low-income areas who were overweight. The study was part of a larger trial that tested if financial rewards could help people lose weight better than just giving them resources. The participants were mostly women, with an average age...

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Apr 15 2025EDUCATION

A Pioneer in Understanding How We Make Choices

Robin M. Hogarth was a key figure in shaping how we understand the way people make choices. He was born in 1942 and passed away in 2024. Hogarth's work laid the groundwork for behavioral economics. He spent over 50 years studying, teaching, and guiding others in this field. Hogarth's research was wide-ranging. He looked at specific questions, such as how to best com...

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Mar 28 2025TECHNOLOGY

Social Media and the Power of AI

The world of social communication is undergoing a significant shift. Artificial intelligence is being used to manage how people interact online. This approach is based on the idea of behavioral economics, which looks at how people make decisions. This concept is not new. Daniel Kahneman, a famous psychologist, talked about two systems in the brain. System 1 is intuit...

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Feb 11 2025FINANCE

How People React to Gains and Losses in Pay-for-Performance Plans

A lot of companies use pay-for-performance (P4P) plans to motivate their employees. These can be given as rewards, or bonuses, or as penalties, or losses, based on performance. It's interesting because people typically dislike losing out more than they enjoy earning extra. This is a well-known concept in economics, called diminishing marginal utility of wealth. It me...

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