Dan Ariely Presents “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior” in Upcoming MOOC

in Economics, Online Courses, Psychology | November 12th, 2012

Here’s one thing you can look for­ward to ear­ly next year. Dan Ariely, a well-known pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy and behav­ioral eco­nom­ics at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty, will present A Begin­ner’s Guide to Irra­tional Behav­ior as a Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC). If you’ve been with us for a while, you’re already famil­iar with Ariely’s work. You’ve seen his videos explain­ing why well-inten­tioned peo­ple lie, or why CEOs repeat­ed­ly get out­sized bonus­es that defy log­ic. And you know that eco­nom­ics, when looked at close­ly, is a much messier affair than many ratio­nal choice the­o­rists might care to admit.

Now is your chance to delve into Ariely’s research and dis­cov­er pre­cise­ly how emo­tion shapes eco­nom­ic deci­sions in finan­cial and labor mar­kets, and in our every­day lives. The six-week course (described in more detail here) does­n’t begin until March 25th, but you can reserve your seat today. It’s all free. And keep in mind that stu­dents who mas­ter the mate­ri­als cov­ered in the class will receive a cer­tifi­cate at the end of the course.

Oth­er poten­tial­ly inter­est­ing MOOCs com­ing ear­ly next year include:

Our list of 175 Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es has now been updat­ed to include all cours­es start­ing in Jan­u­ary, Feb­ru­ary and March of next year.

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Aldous Huxley’s Most Beautiful, LSD-Assisted Death: A Letter from His Widow

in Literature, Psychology | October 18th, 2012

Just over a year ago, we fea­tured a clip of an inter­view with Lau­ra Archera Hux­ley, wid­ow of British dystopi­an nov­el­ist and not­ed psy­che­del­ic drug enthu­si­ast Aldous Hux­ley. When he approached death’s door in 1963, he asked her to give him a dose of “LSD, 100 µg, intra­mus­cu­lar.” If you’ve got to check out, this sounds, by Lau­ra’s descrip­tion, like one of the prefer­able ways to do it, or at least a way that aligned close­ly with Hux­ley’s con­vic­tions. “There was absolute­ly no jolt, no agi­ta­tion,” she recalled on cam­era. “Noth­ing except this very qui­et — like a music that becomes less and less audi­ble. Like fad­ing away. [ … ] There was a beau­ti­ful expres­sion in the face. It was a very beau­ti­ful expres­sion in the face.” Let­ters of Note added much detail onto this spare account by post­ing a let­ter sent from Lau­ra to Hux­ley’s broth­er Julian not long after the writer’s death from laryn­geal can­cer. One page appears above, and at Let­ters of Note you can find scans of all of them plus a com­plete tran­script.

“I had the feel­ing actu­al­ly that the last hour of breath­ing was only the con­di­tioned reflex of the body that had been used to doing this for 69 years, mil­lions and mil­lions of times,” wrote Lau­ra. “There was not the feel­ing that with the last breath, the spir­it left. It had just been gen­tly leav­ing for the last four hours. [ … ] [Every­one attend­ing Hux­ley] said that this was the most serene, the most beau­ti­ful death. Both doc­tors and nurse said they had nev­er seen a per­son in sim­i­lar phys­i­cal con­di­tion going off so com­plete­ly with­out pain and with­out strug­gle. [ … ] We will nev­er know if all this is only our wish­ful think­ing, or if it is real, but cer­tain­ly all out­ward signs and the inner feel­ing gave indi­ca­tion that it was beau­ti­ful and peace­ful and easy.” Just above, you’ll find the video we pre­vi­ous­ly post­ed of Lau­ra’s briefer descrip­tion of the same events.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Aldous Hux­ley Warns Against Dic­ta­tor­ship in Amer­i­ca

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

Aldous Hux­ley Reads Dra­ma­tized Ver­sion of Brave New World

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Miranda July Teaches You How to Avoid Procrastination

in Film, Life, Psychology | October 8th, 2012

I’ve always thought of writer, actor and film­mak­er Miran­da July as some­one who cre­ates her own oppor­tu­ni­ties. Long before her sto­ries in The New York­er, and before Me and You and Every­one We Know, the award-win­ning first fea­ture that cement­ed her indie dar­ling sta­tus, she was cir­cu­lat­ing video chain let­ters fea­tur­ing her own work and that of oth­er young, female film­mak­ers. She record­ed LPs and toured orig­i­nal per­for­mance art pieces.

What a relief to find out she’s a pro­cras­ti­na­tor, too.

July insists that her chat­ter­ing mon­key mind near­ly deprived her of the con­cen­tra­tion nec­es­sary to fin­ish writ­ing The Future, her sec­ond full-length film. One of its most com­pelling parts actu­al­ly wound up on the cut­ting room floor. In it (above), we see Sophie, the under-employed would-be dancer played by July, com­ing to grips with her own self-sab­o­tag­ing ten­den­cy toward pro­cras­ti­na­tion.

Of course, the rea­son we’re able to see it at all is that July, whose indus­tri­ous­ness sure­ly has earned her the right to spend a decade or so doing noth­ing but watch­ing YouTube and Googling her own name, repur­posed it as a short, instruc­tion­al film (A Handy Tip for the Eas­i­ly Dis­tract­ed), which offers an anti­dote for those of us who share her afflic­tion.

(Admit it. You’re pro­cras­ti­nat­ing now, aren’t you?)

In addi­tion to the sound­ness of her advice, her method­ol­o­gy is endear­ing­ly low-tech. As one who’s been known to attribute a lack of cre­ative out­put to a less than ide­al work­space, I found the clut­tered, shab­by apart­ment set both famil­iar and gal­va­niz­ing. If we’re going to make excus­es, we may as well own them. July takes yet anoth­er step by har­ness­ing them and forc­ing them to work for her.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Life-Affirm­ing Talks by Cul­tur­al Mav­er­icks (Includ­ing Miran­da July) Pre­sent­ed at The School of Life

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of any num­ber of books includ­ing The Zinester’s Guide to NYC and No Touch Mon­key! And Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late.

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How to Make Better Decisions, a Thought-Provoking Documentary by the BBC

in Life, Psychology, Television | September 28th, 2012

“In this pro­gram,” says nar­ra­tor Peter Capal­di at the out­set, “we’re going to show you how to be more ratio­nal, and deal with some of life’s biggest deci­sions.” It’s a pret­ty big claim, and you may doubt that it’s true (espe­cial­ly dur­ing the sil­ly open­ing scene involv­ing a group of nerds try­ing to score a date) but give this 2008 BBC Hori­zon pro­gram a lit­tle time and you might come away with a few things to think about. How to Make Bet­ter Deci­sions takes us inside cog­ni­tive sci­ence lab­o­ra­to­ries and out on the streets to demon­strate how the emo­tion­al part of our brain gets the bet­ter of the ratio­nal part. The film intro­duces a num­ber of intrigu­ing con­cepts, includ­ing Prospect The­o­ry,  “the fram­ing effect,” and “prim­ing.” More con­tro­ver­sial­ly, it high­lights some research that sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty that our intu­ition may have some­thing to do with an abil­i­ty to sense future events. How to Make Bet­ter Deci­sions is 49 min­utes long, and we’ve decid­ed to add it to our grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Neu­ro­science and Free Will

Dan Ariely’s Ani­mat­ed Talk on How and Why We’re Dis­hon­est

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Dan Ariely’s Animated Talk Reveals How and Why We’re All Dishonest

in Psychology | September 21st, 2012

If it is the bulk of the world’s cheat­ing, steal­ing, and decep­tion you seek, says Duke pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy and behav­ioral eco­nom­ics Dan Ariely, look not to the heinous acts of indi­vid­ual vil­lains; look to the count­less dis­hon­est acts com­mit­ted dai­ly by the rest of human­i­ty. “The mag­ni­tude of dis­hon­esty we see in soci­ety is by good peo­ple who think they’re being good but are in fact cheat­ing just a lit­tle bit,” so we learn in the lec­ture above (find the com­plete lec­ture here). Ariely speaks these words, but they also appear writ­ten onscreen by a pen-wield­ing hand that rapid­ly sum­ma­rizes and (lit­er­al­ly) illus­trates Ariely’s points as he makes them. This unusu­al style of ani­ma­tion appears in a whole series of videos from the Roy­al Soci­ety for the Encour­age­ment of Arts, Man­u­fac­tures and Com­merce called RSA Ani­mate. These have, the RSA claims, “rev­o­lu­tionised the field of knowl­edge visu­al­i­sa­tion whilst spread­ing the most impor­tant ideas of our time.” Rev­o­lu­tion­ary or not, The Truth About Dis­hon­esty makes, in under twelve min­utes, the kind of obser­va­tions that let you see real­i­ty just a lit­tle more clear­ly.

“Human beings basi­cal­ly try to do two things at the same time,” Ariely says and the hand writes. “On one hand, we want to be able to look in the mir­ror and feel good about our­selves. On the oth­er hand, we want to ben­e­fit from dis­hon­esty.” This dilem­ma would seem to allow no com­pro­mise — you’re either hon­est or you’re dis­hon­est, right? — but Ariely finds that most of us instinc­tive­ly strive for the gray area between: “Thanks to our flex­i­ble cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gy and our abil­i­ty to ratio­nal­ize our actions, we could do both.” We then hear and see how, if the prop­er ratio­nal­iza­tion hap­pens and the instances of cheat­ing remain minor and dis­tanced from their effects, every­body acts with a mix­ture of hon­esty and dis­hon­esty. (But some­times the “what the hell effect” — the lec­ture’s finest coinage — kicks in, where peo­ple tem­porar­i­ly stop con­sid­er­ing them­selves good and pro­ceed to act freely.) Ariely brings up the exam­ple, ripped from the head­lines, of bankers and hedge fund man­agers who, dis­tanced by vast cor­po­rate struc­tures and elab­o­rate math­e­mat­ics from those whom their actions con­cret­ly affect. The hand draws a car­i­ca­ture of Oscar Wilde, then writes the most appro­pri­ate quote beside it: “Moral­i­ty, like art, means draw­ing a line some­place.”

via Brain Pick­ings

More RSA Talks:

Rena­ta Sale­cl: The Para­dox of Choice

Sir Ken Robin­son: A Cre­ative Edu­ca­tion

Good Cap­i­tal­ist Kar­ma: Zizek Ani­mat­ed

Smile or Die: The Per­ils of Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy

Steven Pinker: How Innu­en­do Makes Things Work

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Steven Pinker Presents His Big Gallery of Cape Cod Photography

in Photography, Psychology | September 4th, 2012

Har­vard pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy Steven Pinker gar­nered a sig­nif­i­cant amount of atten­tion in the past year for his mas­sive, 800-page book Bet­ter Angels of Our Nature, which argues the con­tro­ver­sial the­sis that, despite the atroc­i­ties of the 20th and 21st cen­turies, vio­lence has declined world­wide and we live in the most peace­ful era in human his­to­ry. (A much short­er ver­sion of his the­sis is an essay enti­tled A His­to­ry of Vio­lence). You might expect some­one steeped in research on bru­tal inhu­man­i­ty and war to be a lit­tle on edge, but Pinker has a side­line as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the tran­quil and serene.

His most recent series of pic­tures builds on a fif­teen-year his­to­ry of pho­tograph­ing scenes of Cape Cod. In a tweet announc­ing the most recent col­lec­tion, Pinker claims his inspi­ra­tion for this series is the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Joel Meyerowitz, whose book Cape Light ren­ders the Mass­a­chu­setts Cape in the soft sub­tle tones of Renoir’s land­scapes. Pinker’s lens takes in a deep­er, rich­er light, and col­or pops from his images in unex­pect­ed ways—more Manet than Mon­et. His pho­tog­ra­phy, I would imag­ine, pro­vides a much-need­ed diver­sion from the heady inten­si­ty of his aca­d­e­m­ic work, and the images are strik­ing and beau­ti­ful. Look through Pinker’s lat­est Cape Cod series here.

For more of Pinker’s pho­tog­ra­phy see the full archive at his web­site.

And vis­it this link for an exten­sive archive of video and audio inter­views and talks from Pinker.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Steven Pinker Explains the Neuroscience of Swearing (NSFW)

in English Language, Psychology | August 23rd, 2012

Steven Pinker is an exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist and one of the world’s fore­most writ­ers on lan­guage, mind, and human nature. Cur­rent­ly at Har­vard, Pinker has also taught at Stan­ford and MIT, and his research on visu­al cog­ni­tion and the psy­chol­o­gy of lan­guage has won prizes from the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion of Great Britain, the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Soci­ety, and the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion.

This video (find part 1 above, part 2 below, and the tran­script here) is tak­en from a talk giv­en on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2008 at War­wick­’s Book­store in La Jol­la, Cal­i­for­nia. Here, we find Pinker talk­ing about his then new book, The Stuff of Thought: Lan­guage as a Win­dow into Human Nature, and doing what he does best: com­bin­ing psy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science with lin­guis­tics. The result is as enter­tain­ing (and not safe for work) as it is insight­ful.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Stephen Fry, Lan­guage Enthu­si­ast, Defends The “Unnec­es­sary” Art Of Swear­ing

George Car­lin Per­forms His “Sev­en Dirty Words” Rou­tine: His­toric and Com­plete­ly NSFW

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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This is What Oliver Sacks Learned on LSD and Amphetamines

in Psychology, Science | August 23rd, 2012

In this week’s issue of the New York­er, neu­rol­o­gist and writer Oliv­er Sacks has an arti­cle titled “Altered States.” Sub­ti­tled “Self-exper­i­ments in chem­istry,” it cov­ers, to be blunter, what Sacks expe­ri­enced and learned — or failed to learn, sub­stance depend­ing — when he began doing drugs.

His desire to con­duct these self-exper­i­ments flared up in his thir­ties, when, among oth­er sud­den jolts of curios­i­ty, he felt a sus­pi­cion that he had nev­er real­ly seen the col­or indi­go. “One sun­ny Sat­ur­day in 1964, I devel­oped a phar­ma­co­log­ic launch­pad con­sist­ing of a base of amphet­a­mine (for gen­er­al arousal), LSD (for hal­lu­cino­genic inten­si­ty), and a touch of cannabis (for a lit­tle added delir­i­um). About twen­ty min­utes after tak­ing this, I faced a white wall and exclaimed, ‘I want to see indi­go now — now!’ ” The result­ing expe­ri­ence, and sure­ly many oth­ers besides, should appear in detail in Sacks’ upcom­ing book Hal­lu­ci­na­tions. While you need to sub­scribe to the mag­a­zine to read the New York­er piece, any­one can watch the video above, which spends a few min­utes with Sacks talk­ing about what drugs taught him about the brain.

Every sub­ject Sacks writes about seems to start with his inter­est in our unusu­al sen­so­ry expe­ri­ences and end in the organ­ic work­ings of our brains. His body of work com­pris­es books on migraine, encephali­tis, visu­al agnosia, deaf­ness, autism, col­or blind­ness, and var­i­ous oth­er per­cep­tu­al impair­ments. Think­ing back to his self-induced hal­lu­ci­na­tions, he remem­bers feel­ing that “the drugs might sen­si­tize me to expe­ri­ences of a sort my patients could have,” mak­ing him more empa­thet­ic to what they were going through. On the oth­er hand, he says, some drugs “gave me some very direct knowl­edge of what phys­i­ol­o­gists would call the reward sys­tems of the brain,” pro­duc­ing “intense plea­sure, some­times plea­sure of an almost orgas­mic degree, with no par­tic­u­lar con­tent,” the kind that made him fear he would become one of those famous lab rats with an elec­trode con­nect­ed to its brain’s plea­sure cen­ter, push­ing and push­ing the lever to stim­u­late that cen­ter to the very end. But he stepped back, observed, wrote, and avoid­ed that fate, or at least its equiv­a­lent in the human domain, liv­ing to tell the tale more elo­quent­ly than most any writer around.

(See also: more from Oliv­er Sacks on the New York­er’s Out Loud pod­cast.)

Relat­ed con­tent:

Oliv­er Sacks Talks Music with Jon Stew­art

Oliv­er Sacks on the iPod

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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