Behavioral Grooves Podcast Covid-19 Crisis: Annie Duke on Hedging and the Last Disaster Syndrome
Hedging Difficulty
- People struggle to hedge when the decision's quality isn't immediately clear.
- This makes it hard to implement preventative measures until it's too late.
Regretting Hedges
- People regret unnecessary hedges, like buying a tent for a sunny wedding.
- This 'resulting' phenomenon makes us hesitant to take preventative actions.
Near Free-Rolls
- Consider "near free-rolls," where the downside is minimal but the upside is huge.
- Producing test kits in January was a near free-roll with massive potential benefits.
Annie Duke is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. Her most recent book, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, quickly became a national bestseller and landed on the Behavioral Grooves Top 10 list for 2018!
Prior to her career as a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education.
And this is Annies third time on Behavioral Grooves – you can hear her in Episode 31 and our 100th episode spectacular! Over the years that we’ve known Annie, we’ve developed a friendship that reveals itself in this episode as a very conversational exchange among friends sitting around talking about the crisis.
We talked about hedging, the Last Disaster syndrome, and of course, decision making under uncertainty. We hope you enjoy.
PS: Annie's newest book, How We Decide, can be pre-ordered on the Amazon link below.
© 2020 Behavioral Grooves
LinksConnect with Kurt and Tim:
Kurt Nelson, PhD: @WhatMotivates e-mail: kurt@lanterngroup.com
Tim Houlihan: @THoulihan e-mail: tim@behavioralchemy.com
Lantern Group: http://lanterngroup.com/
BehaviorAlchemy: https://www.behavioralchemy.com/
Behavioral Grooves: https://behavioralgrooves.com/
Weekly Grooves: https://weeklygrooves.podbean.com/
Common Biases & Heuristics: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XHpBr0VFcaT8wIUpr-9zMIb79dFMgOVFRxIZRybiftI/edit#
General Coronavirus Info:
Daily Newsletter Summarizing data from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security: http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/newsroom/newsletters/e-newsletter-sign-up.html
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
Great videos on the science behind this by Dr. Peter Attia – this is the first in a series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNVhLyAlfA4
What is herd immunity? https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615375/what-is-herd-immunity-and-can-it-stop-the-coronavirus/
Coronavirus & Behavioral Science:
Selected Links: The Behavioral Sice of Coronavirus: https://behavioralscientist.org/selected-links-the-behavioral-science-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19/
Why no one is reading your coronavirus email: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/13/opinions/coronavirus-emails-effective-messaging-rogers/index.html
Handwashing can stop a virus, so why don’t we do it?: https://behavioralscientist.org/handwashing-can-stop-a-virus-so-why-dont-we-do-it-coronavirus-covid-19/
The behavioral science of handwashing: https://think.ing.com/articles/the-behavioural-science-of-hand-washing/
How we can cope or be better during this crisis:
Tip Sheet from HUMU: https://humu.com/remote-nudges/
Resources for learning at home: https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/resources-learning-home-during-covid-19-school-closures?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=etcetera
General Behavioral Science and other info related or talked about in the series:
Common Biases and Heuristics: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XHpBr0VFcaT8wIUpr-9zMIb79dFMgOVFRxIZRybiftI/edit#
Jonathan Haidt – 5 Moral Foundations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory
Jürgen Klopp: https://ftw.usatoday.com/2020/03/jurgen-klopp-goes-off-on-reporter-after-being-asked-about-coronavirus-again
UBI (Universal Basic Income): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
7-Minute Workout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxYJcnvyMw
4 Drive Model: https://www.leadersbeacon.com/how-great-leaders-use-the-4-drive-model-to-impact-employee-motivation/
Universal Basic Income: https://behavioralscientist.org/checkscheckschecks-why-we-need-a-universal-basic-income-now-coronavirus/
Why we are not going back to normal: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/
Annie Duke’s “How To Decide”: https://www.amazon.com/How-Decide-Simple-Making-Choices/dp/0593084608