Human Nature/Human Potential Program
CDR scholars are seeking a more accurate and empirical understanding of human capacities, tendencies, and possibilities regarding economic and social decision-making.
Understanding Human Nature to Harness Human Potential
Richard Thaler
Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics
Project Website
The economic jungle and its primary inhabitant, Homo economicus, don't really exist, according to scholars at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Center for Decision Research (CDR). Homo sapiens are neither unboundedly rational, nor completely selfish, nor in possession of perfect willpower, as this traditional model would suggest.
Pioneers in the field of behavioral economics, CDR scholars are seeking a more accurate and empirical understanding of human capacities, tendencies, and possibilities when it comes to economic and social decision-making. This will require broad interdisciplinary collaborations spanning across fields such as social psychology, cognitive science, and law. Researchers hope to change the way that social scientists think by shifting away from methods that derive human nature from pure theoretical principles to methods that analyze human nature by empirical means.
The Human Nature/Human Potential project currently employs two general methods to guide emerging research with respect to taking advantage of the way the mind systematically operates. The first entails trying to overcome problematic tendencies, such as the predisposition to egocentrism, while the second method involves designing structures that redirect human "weaknesses" to productive ends. Major topics of research include optimizing the efficacy and satisfaction produced by goal-setting; "hedonomics," or an examination of the relationship between material possession and happiness; increasing allocentrism, or the ability to adopt another person's perspective; and how to maintain good decision-making with age. Researchers hope this knowledge will lead to improved economic and social decision-making that will increase both human performance and potential for positive change.
For more information please visit the project website at:
http://research.chicagogsb.edu/cdr/
