Dan Ariely was one of the featured speakers at the 2009 TED Conference in Long Beach. You can watch a high-res MP4 version of the video here, if you have a player like Windows Media Player or Quicktime. Also very worthwhile is this interview, in which he discusses the lessons that can be learned from the Madoff swindle, and much more.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Friday TED Talk: Dan Ariely on the Bugs in our Moral Code
Why do we think sometimes it is OK to try to get away with something? I can't assure you that this will help get to the bottom of the troubles in the Episcopal Church (USA), but it is fascinating to watch Dan Ariely explain about his discoveries regarding human behavior:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I honestly enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who told me that in his previous occupation as a car salesman, he got to the point where he could not look at himself in the mirror. He is now happy and working in an honest profession.
Unfortunately, he was easily replaced at the car dealership.
How my anecdotal story helps explain the troubles in the TEC, I will leave to you as just a hypothesis generating idea.
I was a car salesman/finance manager/sales manager for 25 years. I quit because I found I could no longer, in good conscience, do what you have to do to make a living in today's car market. The fault, though, lies with the manufacturers, dealerships, and (yes) customers that combine to make it almost impossible to make any money on a car sale. Salesmen make their commission on the front end profit and when a customer marches in and beats you down to $100 over, you starve to death. Of course, the dealership makes money even at cost because of the "holdback" but the salesman gets hammered. I know it's "off topic" but I just don't like to see car salesman beat up on all the time.
ReplyDeletethe snarkster™