Dan Ariely
Translating tragedy into empirical insight
Introduction
Dan Ariely is a psychologist and behavioral economist, and one of the most influential academics currently working in his field. With three New York Times best-selling books and several highly-viewed TED talks to his name, he is known not only for his wide-ranging and incisive research but also for his accessible communication style and his sense of humor.
Ariely’s work, which spans many concepts from pain tolerance to financial decision making, has challenged some of the most basic assumptions of traditional economics, and shone a light on the systematic irrationalities of human behavior. His research has implications for individuals (How can we commit to healthier habits? How do we avoid irrational decision making?) as well as for society as a whole (How do we make work more fulfilling? How do we address wealth inequality?).
*The Decision Lab has collaborated with Dan Ariely in the past, when he served as an advisor for our work with the World Bank in Uganda. You can find out more about that project here.
I do believe that an improved understanding of the multiple irrational forces that influence us could be a useful first step toward making better decisions.
– Dan Ariely, The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
