If you’ve read around in social science circles, you most
likely will have come across the Israeli daycare study. Researchers noticed that there was a social
cost to picking up children late, and determined to see what would happen if a true
monetary cost was applied – instead of being shamed for picking up the kids
late, what would happen if you had to pay a price. It was seen that where you had to pay for
picking up your kids late, more kids were picked up late.
I have seen it short-handed so often that the question of
who did the study has faded into the background. Like the Jam Study or the Marshmallow study,
they are social science catnip, glommed onto by writers both popular and
academic.
So—when I was reading this book, and in the introduction the
waiters (using an awkward “We” formation for first person) started to imply
that they were the ones who did it, I got mad.
That’s until I looked up the original study and found that one of the
coauthors of this book was one of the coauthors of that study. I suppose that if I were in the field deeper,
I would know that, but I knew just enough to jump to mistaken conclusions.
All that was to set up this: the authors know what they’re
talking about. This book is a
well-written defense of the importance of not only looking at incentives but
also taking your hypotheses into the field for testing. That is the key take-away. The problem is that theirs is not the first
to make those claims. This book, like the reference to the daycare study, feels
generic because I have read so many authors doing similar work that nothing
pops out. If you have not read Ariely or
Geno or Sunnstein with Thaler, this book will open your eyes to a cool field of
study. Otherwise, it is only for completest.
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