If a baseball and a bat cost $1.10 together, and the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost?
Solution
5 cents. System 1 thinking often leads to mistakes in this type of problem.
A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate—that boy is my son!” How is that possible?
Solution
The surgeon is the boy’s mother. This puzzle illustrates the persistence of gender discrimination.
In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
Solution
47 days. To answer correctly, you need to ignore your system 1 and use your system 2.
Alan is smart, hard-working, impulsive, stubborn and jealous.
Ben is jealous, stubborn, impulsive, hard-working and smart.
Who should you hire?
Solution
They are the same, but a priming effect often make people prefer the first candidate.
29-04-2020
In our next episode of B.E. GOOD!, we will be speaking with Cass Sunstein, one of the leading legal scholars who, for the past fifteen years, has been at the forefront of behavioral economics.
Cass is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School and a prolific author, including the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, which has had an enormous impact in the field.
In this episode, we will:
– Learn how Cass came to collaborate with his friend Richard Thaler – and to work for President Obama, as the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
– Hear his advice for policymakers and behavioral scientists in helping to combat both the coronavirus crisis and political polarization.
– Get Cass’ perspective on the power of behavioral science to make workplaces happier and more productive.
– Get a preview of his upcoming work on information disclosure – and hear why we all underestimate the importance of “cognitive scarcity”.
And check out a sketchnote of the episode:
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