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Israel Dan Ariely is a professor and author specializing in psychology and behavioral economics, known for shedding light on the hidden forces that shape human decisions.
Dan is a Founding Partner of Irrational Capital, focusing on behavioral economic research and strategy development. The firm applies workplace behavioral science, financial acumen, and data analysis to create new investing strategies.
Dan Ariely has mentioned Apple as a brand that understands bad decisions and human behavior, in discussions about behavioral economics.
Dan Ariely has mentioned Amazon as a brand that understands bad decisions and human behavior, related to his work as a behavioral economics professor and author.
As a speaker for Brand Minds, Dan Ariely shares his techniques on behavioral economics to help companies create successful marketing strategies by better understanding consumer buying behavior.
Dan Ariely founded Shapa, focusing on chronic disease management and prevention. The company later partnered with Vitality Group, a global health tech company, to address US healthcare challenges.
Dan Ariely joined Lemonade, an insurance company, as its Chief Behavioral Officer, integrating aspects of behavioral economics into its insurance model.
Dan Ariely explains how companies, like Ikea, can harness the 'Ikea effect' to understand human behavior, specifically how people's perception of value increases when they invest their own labor into a product.
Dan Ariely was born on April 29, 1967, in New York City. His early life was marked by a significant event in his senior year of high school when flammable materials he was mixing for a ceremony exploded, resulting in third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body. This challenging experience, particularly the painful and persistent treatments during his hospitalization, later motivated his research into irrational behaviors and how to improve the delivery of painful yet unavoidable medical treatments. He initially pursued physics and mathematics at Tel Aviv University, later transitioning to philosophy and psychology, graduating with a psychology degree in 1991. He continued his academic journey, earning a master’s degree in cognitive psychology in 1994 and a Ph.D. two years later from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1998, he completed a second Ph.D. in business administration at Duke University, encouraged by Daniel Kahneman.
Ariely taught at MIT as the Alfred P. Sloan professor of behavioral economics from 1998 to 2008. During this period, his work gained recognition, including an Ig Nobel Prize in medicine in 2008 for research demonstrating that “high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.” In 2008, he returned to Duke University, where he became the James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics. At Duke, he founded the Center for Advanced Hindsight, focusing research on areas such as the psychology of money, decision-making in healthcare, cheating, and social justice. He has authored several New York Times best-selling books, including “Predictably Irrational,” “The Upside of Irrationality,” and “The Honest Truth about Dishonesty.” From June 2012 to September 2022, he wrote an advice column called “Ask Ariely” for The Wall Street Journal.
His research on decision-making and behavioral economics has also led to several entrepreneurial ventures aimed at applying these insights to real-world problems. He co-founded BEworks, a behavioral economics consulting firm, and Timeful, a time management app that was acquired by Google in 2015. Other ventures include Irrational Labs, a consulting firm; Genie, a kitchen appliance company; Qapital, a personal finance app where he served as Chief Behavioral Economist and later as chairman of the board; and Shapa, a company focused on health monitoring. In 2016, he became the chief behavioral officer at Lemonade, an insurance company. His work and life inspired the NBC television series “The Irrational,” which premiered in 2023.
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