George Loewenstein and the NEW New Economics of Information

Carnegie Mellon University's George Loewenstein presented findings, most in collaboration with students and colleagues in the Social and Decision Sciences Department that challenges traditional economics accounts of how people deal with information. In some cases, motivated by curiosity, people seek out information that has no value for decision making. In other situations, if it threatens to be painful, people avoid information that could inform decisions. And, rather than updating their beliefs rationally, people often defend their beliefs as they would defend material possessions.
Topic Guide:
0:00 Introduction
6:25 Lecture begins
9:23 Background on The Economics of Information
11:55 Introducing the NEW New Economics of Information
16:35 Climate change example
18:02 Four information-related phenomena
19:13 Curiosity
28:20 Privacy
42:36 Desire to reveal information
50:15 Information avoidance
1:08:03 Q&A
Loewenstein's keynote was part of the Behavioral Insights in Action conference to celebrate CMU's new Bachelor of Arts in behavioral economics, policy and organizations (BEPO), the first and only undergraduate major of its kind.
Learn more: www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news...

[@Aman-zk8dm]

What do u conclude on curiosity??

[@ahmedbellankas2549]

The true cost or the true benefit,who knows what's the true benefit or the true cost, individuals in the study or the experimenter ? How do we know that individuals shared their privacy information,for reasons other than cost/benefit reasons ? Or is he equating pecuniary benefits with all benefits? Is that the appropriate way of analysing individuals behavior ?

[@theimpulsivevulcan5346]

Informational economics are pretty much how the world works now more than ever, what with online schooling metrics, and privacy feels harder than ever to conserve. Even still, in the Q&A part, I hoped George would have encouraged the climate change ostrich to challenge her beliefs a little more, even if she feels like it's "hurtful" to even consider climate science. Simply expecting "your truth" to win out over decades of scientific papers and studies is not helpful in confronting modern problems. When she said "no one saw, and now they're new" at 1:08:50, that's not exactly true is it? It's only how the issue was presented to her and how she interpreted it her whole life. I appreciate his wish to be non-confrontational, but it still pained me a little.