Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Understanding the Irrational
For a long time, there was a schism in the social sciences, which was particularly obvious whenever economists and psychologists tried to work together. Psychologists have, generally, long accepted the fact that sometimes perfectly sane people behave irrationally, while economists, for the most part, saw people as always living rational lives. Now, at least some economists and psychologists have reconciled, both accepting that even the most lucid of us sometimes behave irrationally. Behavioral economists have been largely responsible for this ceasefire, and their work on motivation and decision-making, in general, should interest anyone working with clients or trying to make sense of design research data. The Wikipedia page on behavioral economics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics) is a useful introduction to the field and contains links to other material of value to designers. Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke, has done a lot of important research in behavioral economics, and writes up his findings …
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