How Delta Masters the Game of Overbooking Flights
When Delta overbooks a flight, they let their passengers decide how much getting bumped is worth. I discovered this last week when I checked in online for my flight from Minneapolis to Philadelphia.
Staff
Max Nesterak
Max Nesterak is an editor at the Behavioral Scientist and a producer at Minnesota Public Radio News. Previously, he worked at National Public Radio on their social science podcast Hidden Brain and before that was psychologist Angela Duckworth's editorial assistant for her bestselling book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. He was also a Fulbright scholar in Berlin and helped found the psychology news site The Psych Report. He graduated from Swarthmore College, where he studied English and German.
High CEO Pay Can Push Consumers Away
How much does a CEO make compared to the average worker? If you’re like most Americans (many economists included), you probably have an estimate in your head that roughly translates as “too much.” Pressed for a number, you might come up with a figure around 30 to 1.
NPR Launches New Podcast Exploring the ‘Hidden Brain’
This is one of the questions NPR’s Shankar Vedantam takes up in an episode of his new podcast Hidden Brain, set to launch next week on September 22.
Teachers Like You Like You: How Finding Common Ground Could Help Close the Achievement Gap
We like people like ourselves. Scientists call it the homophily principle, which states that like birds, people tend to flock with others who look and think and act like themselves.
You Can’t Ape It: Art Outsiders Can Tell The Difference Between Abstract Art and Finger Paintings
Anyone who’s stood before one of Cy Twombly’s gigantic scribbles or Jackson Pollock’s chaotic drip paintings knows it doesn’t take an expert to be a critic.
ideas42 Sets Out to Help End Poverty Through Behavioral Interventions
It’s well documented that the consequences of childhood poverty are immediate and long-lasting. By their first day in school, children in poverty score worse than their middle and upper class peers on nearly every developmental measure from language use to attention skills.
How Trust Leads to Truth: A Q&A on the U.S. Government’s Search for an Evidence-Based Interrogation Strategy
Since 2010, a group of psychologists has been quietly working for a new U.S. intelligence unit on identifying and developing interrogation methods that work.
Senate Report Calls CIA Tactics Inhumane and Ineffective, Details Unethical Application of Psychology
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) interrogation program following 9/11 details a horrifying program of physical and psychological torture that they argue was ineffective in eliciting new intelligence.
Science to SPARQ Change: Stanford’s New Psychology Solutions Center
Stanford University’s Social Psychological Answers to Real-world Questions, or SPARQ, is setting out to do what most budding social scientists hope to do: change the world. Through working directly with the public – policy makers, educators, non-profit leaders – SPARQ’s mission, as its rather lengthy but straightforward name suggests, is to develop and help implement […]
New Journal Helps Behavioral Scientists Find Their Way to Washington
When it comes to being heard in Washington, classical economists have long gotten their way. Behavioral scientists, on the other hand, haven’t proved so adept at getting their message across.