TED演讲稿 Are we in control of our own decisions.doc

Are we in control of our own decisions? by Dan Ariely Ill tell you a little bit about irrational behavior. Not yours, of course -- other peoples. (Laughter) So after being at MIT for a few years, I realized that writing academic papers is not that exciting. You know, I dont know how many of those you read, but its not fun to read and often not fun to write -- even worse to write. So I decided to try and write something more fun. And I came up with an idea that I will write a cookbook. And the title for my cookbook was going to be Dining Without Crumbs: The Art of Eating Over the Sink. (Laughter) And it was going to be a look at life through the kitchen. And I was quite excited about this. I was going to talk a little bit about research, a little bit about the kitchen. You know, we do so much in the kitchen I thought this would be interesting. And I wrote a couple of chapters. And I took it to MIT press and they said, Cute, but not for us. Go and find somebody else. I tried other people and everybody said the same thing, Cute. Not for us. Until somebody said, Look, if youre serious about this, you first have to write a book about your research. You have to publish something, and then youll get the opportunity to write something else. If you really want to do it you have to do it. So I said, You know, I really dont want to write about my research. I do this all day long. I want to write something else. Something a bit more free, less constrained. And this person was very forceful and said, Look. Thats the only way youll ever do it. So I said, Okay, if I have to do it -- I had a sabbatical. I said, Ill write about my research if there is no other way. And then Ill get to do my cookbook. So I wrote a book on my research. ※And it turned out to be quite fun in two ways. First of all, I enjoyed writing. But the more interesting thing was that I started learning from people. Its a fantastic time to write, because there is so much feedback you can get from people. People w