‘Radical Uncertainty’ and Trump’s On-again, Off-again Tariffs
Few of us relish uncertainty, but we can tolerate it if we at least know the odds.
Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is a visiting professor at Haas School of Business, U.C. Berkeley, emeritus professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, and the author of The Paradox of Choice, Why We Work, Practical Wisdom (with Kenneth Sharpe), and, forthcoming in fall 2025, Choose Wisely (with Richard Schuldenfrei).
Social Science, Ideology, Culture, & History
Social science gives us ideas about human nature. What does it mean for the science when those ideas don’t just describe our nature, but shape it?
Psychology’s Increased Rigor Is Good News. But Is It Only Good News?
We should have greater confidence than before that findings we read about in journals will replicate. What’s good about this is evident. But do we pay a price for increased rigor?
Is Having Too Many Choices (Versus Too Few) Really the Greater Problem for Consumers?
A new study featuring more than 7,000 participants from six countries found that choice deprivation—a feeling of not having enough to choose from—not choice overload is the most common consumer experience.
How Practical Wisdom Helps Us Cope with Radical Uncertainty
As the world begins to open back up in fits and starts, we are, more than ever, longing for certainty. But certainty is likely a long way off. In the meantime, we should turn to practical wisdom to guide us.
Secondhand Smoke, Moral Sanctions, and How We Should Respond to COVID-19
We are reluctant to tell people how to live their lives, except insofar as individual decisions affect the lives of others. We can learn a valuable lesson for the present moment from the examples of smoking and drunk driving.
Do College Admissions by Lottery
It is the fate of thousands of teenagers applying to dozens of selective institutions that they will not get what they deserve.
Barry Schwartz: The Idea that Shaped My Career
The “finding” from outside psychology that most influenced me—indeed it essentially shaped my entire career—was not so much a “finding” as an argument.
When Google Speaks, People Listen…and They Should: A Review of Work Rules!
There is another way—a way that leads to happier workers, more fulfilling work, and more successful companies.
Why Not Nudge? A Review of Cass Sunstein’s Why Nudge
The field mistakenly called “behavioral economics” (mistakenly because what it is is psychology applied to domains that are the normal province of economists) has taken the intellectual and political world by storm.