Behavioral Economics Done Right

I recently took a course titled “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior” based on the subject Behavioral Economics on Coursera.It was taught by Prof. Dan Ariely, who is one of the major authorities on the subject and is currently teaching at Duke University.

I must say this was the most fun i had while taking a course on Coursera yet.And he has become one of my favorite teachers of all time due to the enthusiasm and spirit with which he taught.The way the class was organized with sometimes funny and mostly informative short lectures,reading materials,interesting quizzes and guest lectures by amazing people puts it among some of the best available courses on any MOOC platform.In six weeks time he was able to explain very abstract ideas like motivation, dishonesty, psychology on money, self-control and emotions with ease and accessibility.The goal of the course,you may ask? To make us all a little bit more rational in our day to day life and enable us to make better decisions to prevent ourselves from suffering from our own mistakes!

The following quote from Dan describes what makes this subject worth considering for all of us :

“We make systematic and predictable mistakes in a range of activities.Behavioral Economics gives you tools and frameworks to identify them and prevent them from happening as much as possible.”

Thanks a lot Prof Dan for sharing your knowledge,experiences and jokes with me!