Knowing and Making

Some colleagues at Irrational Agency and I have recently been working on a framework around advice, and a key dilemma: Those who know less about finance, are more in need of advice But those wh...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2024/09/the-dilemma-of-advice.html

My new paper, coauthored with Yohan John , Dakota McCoy and Oliver Braganza , is out in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. "Dead rats, dopamine, performance metrics and peacock tails " is about th...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2023/08/dead-rats-and-dopamine-new-publication.html

There are plenty of claims of US election fraud floating around this week. Most of them fall into three categories: Too vague to be meaningfully evaluated or investigated Too small to matter (...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2020/11/how-to-debunk-electoral-fraud-claim.html

Behavioral Scientist have put together their favourite predictions, ideas, worries and challenges in the field of behavioral science for the next decade. We were delighted they accepted our pitc...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2020/01/predictions-for-next-decade-in.html

For those interested in a bit more background to my Times article today , here are some details on how Cummings's topics have showed up in my cognitive economics research. You can judge for your...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2020/01/am-i-person-dominic-cummings-is-looking.html

Since last year I have been discussing the idea of "System 3" - a set of mental capabilities and processes involved in imagination and mental simulation. These capabilities appear to be used for...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/12/other-writers-on-system-3.html

Rory Sutherland's new book Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don't Make Sense  continues his 10-year campaign against the traditional, logical pursuit of business advantage, through a...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/08/book-review-alchemy-by-rory-sutherland.html

Below is an article by Leigh published in INsights magazine. The magazine published by the Neuromarketing Science & Business Association. See the article in its full glory here or just the text...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/08/from-behavioral-to-cognitive-pricing.html

What's happening inside your head right now? What thoughts, feelings, ideas are spinning around in there? Are they important to you? If you were not able to think those thoughts, would you care?...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/05/what-is-cognitive-economics.html

It probably has not escaped your notice that the Game of Thrones TV series finished this week. If you use social media at all, I suspect you also saw some anguished squawks about how awful the e...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/05/why-endings-matter-spoiler-free-game-of.html

If conventional economic theory is so wrong (as we are repeatedly told ) why does it survive so well? This post by UnlearningEcon  prompted me to think again about why economics, despite wide...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/03/what-makes-useful-theory.html

We had a great response to our Cognitive Economics session at the American Economic Association’s conference a few weeks ago. For those who weren’t there, here’s a quick summary of the ...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/03/reporting-back-cognitive-economics.html

Alex Rosenberg says here that we are instinctively driven by stories, narrative and theory of mind - a very useful instinct on the small scale - although that instinct can be misleading on the ...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2019/02/three-systems-mechanism-for-mental-and.html

For the first time, there will be a session on Cognitive Economics at the American Economic Association’s conference. The conference, in association with the ASSA, is taking place from Friday ...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/12/what-people-want-cognitive-goods-models.html

“Mysterious psycho-logic”, the “Nudge Unit” and irrational humans - Leigh explores cognitive and behavioural economics and science with Rory Sutherland on BBC Radio 4’s show Thought Ca...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/11/mysterious-psycho-logic-nudge-unit-and.html

Hello, today it’s not Leigh posting, but me, Tara, his new colleague! I’ve recently started working for Inon and with Leigh on his cognitive economics work. I’ll be writing content on cogn...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/11/a-new-team-member-and-new-plans.html

Spending today and tomorrow attending the Rebuilding Macroeconomics conference at the Treasury. The programme looks very interesting - highlights include: Ekaterina Svetlova's opening talk ...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/10/rebuilding-macroeconomics.html

In my last post I outlined the concept of System 3, what it is and why it matters. In short, System 3 is the mental ability to imagine the future and evaluate how happy you will be in it – ba...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/04/neuroscience-psychology-and-economics.html

In recent years we’ve become used to thinking about decisions as “system 1” or “system 2”. System 1 choices are automatic decisions, made without thinking, based on an immediate emotio...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/04/introducing-system-3-how-we-use-our.html

There are few truly universal books on behavioural science: like most of the others, this one has a particular reader in mind. Richard's reader works in advertising, and it must be a rare advert...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/03/book-review-choice-factory-by-richard.html

I’m visiting the American Economics Association conference in Philadelphia this weekend and looking forward to catching up with the latest in theoretical and empirical research. Behavioural ec...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2018/01/a-program-for-cognitive-economics.html

, a one-off maybe-to-become-annual publication documenting (and celebrating?) Internet trends] Every human has two minds: one like an amoeba and one like a squirrel. The amoeba mind is reactiv...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2017/05/the-amoeba-and-squirrel.html

I recently gave a talk at TEDxCoventGardenWomen about an economic agent-based modelling system I have built (readers of Thomas Schelling may see some influence). In the talk I use this system to...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2017/02/the-gender-pay-gap-on-euristica.html

The much-delayed final episode in a short series of posts - part 1 and part 2 here. Lassie died one night. As Thomas Schelling* pointed out in a thought-provoking 1982 essay, millions of p...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2017/02/discussion-3-of-3-lassie-died-one-night.html

I had this piece drafted before the murder of Jo Cox last week. But I don’t think it changes anything I was going to say. It simply makes it more urgent to say it. May I introduce you to my ...

http://www.knowingandmaking.com/2016/06/how-does-it-feel-to-be-part-of-europe.html