It is difficult for people to say “I don’t know” because they can often feel like they are qualified to answer a certain question outside their domain of expertise. In “Think like a freak”, defines this belief as ultrarecipardianism. Another reason why people are less likely to say “I Don't know” is because predicting certain events that occur in the future can come with a huge pay off and little consequence. The book mentions a christian preacher, Harold Camping, who predicted that the world would end later that year but as seen now in 2017, that did not occur. The preacher received no punishment for his ignorant claim. A moral compass is someone’s internal judgment on what is right and what is wrong in our world. An individual’s moral compass may make certain answers to issues in our world seem obvious even without knowing the true facts of the situation. The book discusses the topic of suicide and how the country’s shunning toward the action has hindered the reason/s why individuals perform this action.
Thinking small is more advantageous than thinking at a big scale because the world’s most knowledgeable people have already tackled and discussed big problems we face in our world today. Also, these issues are often complicated and too confusing for one individual to tackle. It also allows us to make real attempt to inflict change within a community or neighborhood then throughout the whole world. ( I marked this part of the book, because I thought it gave really good ideas to think about when deciding my research topic).
In economics, declared preferences are incentives individuals may say they prefer while revealed preferences are the actual incentives people truly care and take action upon. In the book, the authors use the example of posting 4 different slogans to cut energy usage on fliers such as urging individuals to cut their energy because it saves money, it protects the environment, it benefits society, and it is what everyone else is doing and posting them in 4 different neighborhoods. In a previous poll they found that the economic benefit, saving money, would compel them most to cut energy usage while cutting energy because other people were doing it was the weakest incentive for people to cut usage. Surprisingly, when they collected data on which fliers caused people to cut their power usages, the herd incentive and slogan of everyone is cutting their power was most effective. This show the difference between what people say they value and what they actually value. Knowing that people are not always as candid as it may seem shows the importance of collecting quantitative data that supports peoples claims.
Mullaney had a unique incite on why people donate to charity. He found that there were two main reasons why people donate, it makes people feel better about themselves and people have a natural desire to help others but Mullaney felt there was one more reason people didn't touch on. This reason was that people feel social pressure to donate once they were asked too. Playing off this idea he created a one and done strategy where people who donated once would never be asked if to donate to this charity if that’s the box they checked on their donation card. Mullaney found this strategy successful because those who would continue to donate to the charity would continue to donate in the future despite the one and done policy and because people felt like the charity was being transparent and giving them power, which was usually not the case for charity’s asking for donations.
Relationship frameworks are basically a rulebook for what is and isn't appropriate behavior with different relationships such as a loved one or authoritarian figure. Within the book it gives the example of your friend inviting you to a dinner party and you giving your friend a 100 dollar bill at the end of the party. You broke the friendship framework with your friend and changed it into a more business framework. In the 1980s, the relationship between the united states and china wasn’t stable. In order to attempt to create a more friendly bond, Chairman Mao invited the United States Ping Pong team when the Chinese team was competing in the same tournament in Japan. These “ping Pong Ambassador” broke the formality of Americans visiting high ranking officials within the Chinese government which influenced The United States to send official government workers to speak with the Chinese government.
The three main reasons why incentives fail is because people are constantly changing their behavior, changing the behavior of people who don't think like you do may not respond the way you think and no individual or government will be smart as the people they are trying to incentivize. The six points to creating the best incentives are to figure out what the people actually want, incentivize them with something they value but cheaply can be provided, pay attention to the response of people, especially when its unexpected, make the incentive cooperative, never expect people to do the right thing and people will try to take advantage of the system in order to win.
Game theory, as defined in “Think Like a Freak” is beating your opponent by anticipating their next move. King Solomon when trying to find the real birth mother of a child told the two conflicting mothers that he would split the child in half and give a half of the child to each mother. One of the ladies agreed with King Solomon’s plan while the either begged for him to give the child to the other lady so he may live. Solomon, knowing the true mother would show compassion at the thought of their son dying, gave the child to the women who wanted him to live. David Lee Roth participated in Game Theory when demanding that a bowl of M&M’s be placed out backstage for the band and that no Brown M&M’s would be in this bowl. This request may seem insane but it would often to be placed at the back of the rider contract that listed all the things that needed to be done for the band before they arrived at the venue. To ensure that the whole entire rider contract was read, they would check that this ridiculous request was completed so they knew that the show was prepared and safe to perform. The game theory can be useful to use on small scale issues such as the those faced by solomon and David Lee Roth but when applied to the larger world, people become less predictable and the theory becomes difficult to use.
The Spanish prisoner was one of the first scams that tempted people to give up their money for no other reason then for the scammers to take your hard earned money. The scenario was that a once wealthy man was jailed in Spain and if you paid for him to be released you would be rewarded handsomely. Nigerian scammers still use this well known method today because it weeds out the large amount of people who know about this scam and aren't gullible enough to send money to the scammers. This method allows the Nigerian scammers to reach people who are willing to actually send money much faster.
The mission of the Cultural cognition program was to research why the public viewed certain topics touchy and sensitive. These include gun control and abortion and can be related to the bathroom bills of today. The CCP found that people don’t have time to fully dive into the topic and solution to climate change and often stick with their initial reaction to the problem. This why it is difficult to convince people that there is an issue that needs to be addressed.
The Concorde fallacy is when you believe you’ve invested too much time and money into project to quit. This fallacy was named after the super sonic jet, the Concorde, which a billion dollars was sunk into and would not be economically viable but the French and British government continued on the project anyways. The three forces that keep people from quitting is because “Don’t ever quit” is advice everyone has been told, it is difficult to give up on something when you sunk time and money into it and finally you lose focus on lost opportunities when trying to fix a lost cause.