Dan Ariely
Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke, best known for Predictably Irrational (2008). He is one of the most quoted behavioural economists in popular business writing. On this site he appears for two things: the origami bidding study that gave the IKEA effect its name, run with Michael Norton and Daniel Mochon, and the 2003 paper with Gal Zauberman on experiences that run continuously against experiences broken into chunks.
Who they are
A standing caution, stated plainly and flagged every time before he is cited. Ariely's body of work has had well-publicised data-integrity problems in some of his studies. This site does not treat that as a verdict on everything he has published, and it does not treat his name as a substitute for checking. The rule here is the specific one: check the particular paper before leaning on it, and prefer a co-author or an independent corroboration where one exists.
Two examples of that rule in practice. The IKEA effect, the finding that people value things more when they have built them themselves, has replicated independently, and Michael Norton, who has no page on this site yet, is the co-author worth citing for it when the aim is the same finding with a cleaner record. The 2003 partitioning result is corroborated independently by Talya Miron-Shatz, who has no page on this site yet, so that point does not rest on his record alone.
Key papers
Ariely, D., & Zauberman, G. (2003). "Differential partitioning of extended experiences", Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91(2), 128 to 139. First author. The paper separates experiences that run continuously from ones broken across periods or interruptions, naming multi-day holidays, plays with an interval, courses and concerts as the second kind. Evaluations of the broken-up kind depend less on the pattern over time and more on the average intensity.
The origami bidding study, with Michael Norton and Daniel Mochon, which gave the IKEA effect its name. Carried on this site at The IKEA Effect.
Key ideas
Break an experience into chunks and people stop scoring it by its shape and start scoring it by its average. That is the mechanism that takes the popular version of the peak-end rule apart for a holiday, which is by definition an experience split across days.
Effort already put in changes what a thing is worth to the person who put it in. That is the IKEA effect, and it is the near neighbour of the sunk cost material carried elsewhere on this site.
Check the paper, not the name. That applies to him more than to most, and it is a rule this site would rather state than apply silently.
Concepts on this site
Anchoring is related and has no page on this site yet
Sources
- Ariely, D., & Zauberman, G. (2003). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91(2), 128 to 139.
- Hooked, pages 136 to 138, where the IKEA effect and the origami bidding study are described.
- Vault record. A standing data-integrity caution is attached to his name and is to be surfaced wherever he is cited.