U.S. Health

ideas42 Seminar Series: A Talk with Ashton Anderson

by ideas42

With the ideas42 Seminar Series, we invite leading scholars to share their insights and what inspires their exploration into human behavior. Our New York office was pleased to host Ashton Anderson, a post-doc researcher in the Computational Social Science group at Microsoft Research in New York. Ashton has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford […]

How Much Is Work-Life Balance Worth on the Job Market?

by Suman Gidwani, Dan Connolly & Uyhun Ung

  People talk about achieving work-life balance all the time: if you want better balance, you can just utilize your strengths, or not be afraid to say no, or buy a #wearable. But the fact that achieving work-life balance continues to be a listicle topic du jour suggests that these solutions aren’t the real answers. […]

Is Work-Life Balance Just a Roll of the Dice?

by Uyhun Ung

Does it ever feel like you’re impossibly busy? If so, you aren’t alone. When asked to estimate how long they spend on certain activities during a week, people typically present a sum exceeding 168 hours. In other words, they think they’re using more hours in a week than actually possible. While not the most reliable […]

Behavioral Insights for Health Innovation Spotlight Series: Tackling the Rising Obesity Rate

by Jaclyn Lefkowitz & Jess Leifer

First Lady Michelle Obama put it this way: “The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake.” Her statement speaks to one of the most significant health challenges our nation is facing—more than a third of American children and teens are overweight or […]

Walking the Walk: Can ideas42 Team Members Truly Disconnect?

by Dan Connolly

Happy New Year! We hope you were able to take some time off at the end of 2016, and that your 2017 is off to a good, fresh start. At ideas42, our team puts in hard work applying behavioral science to social problems throughout the year, so we close our offices between Christmas Eve and […]

Stressed At Work? Don’t Blame Yourself (Too Much)

by Dan Connolly

Picture this: it’s Thursday evening, and the end of a long week is in sight. After two back-to-back meetings, you open your e-mail and find a dozen more messages since the afternoon. You sigh – after you go home, have dinner, or spend some time with family or friends, there will be another hour or […]

Is There a $250 Billion Gap in Charitable Giving in the U.S.?

by Katy Davis, Abigail Kim & Abi Warren

The World Giving Index ranks the United States number two worldwide on the generosity of its citizens, ahead of countries like New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. But what if we told you that Americans think their neighbors should give more than the roughly 3% of annual income they already give to charity—a lot […]

Bellagio Center Residents Question Everything to Surface New Ideas

by Saugato Datta

  This post originally appeared on The Rockefeller Foundation’s blog. During the last three weeks, I have had the pleasure of leading sessions during the thematic month on human behavior at The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, observing as the residents share their perspectives and question everything, including each other’s assumptions, to uncovering surprising connections and […]

More in Common Than You Think: Innovators from Diverse Fields Address Global Challenges

by Piyush Tantia

This post originally appeared on The Rockefeller Foundation’s blog. At first glance, an artist seeking to break stereotypes about hip-hop culture by analyzing rap lyrics may not have much in common with a researcher preparing mental health workers to support developing countries after a disaster. And maybe it’s not immediately obvious what a cartoonist crafting […]

Improving Community Health with Behavioral Science: A Request For Problems

by ideas42

When choosing which foods to eat, what factors influence your decision? Taste? Whether or not it’s healthy? Or how easy it is to get? For most people today, convenience seems to play an outsized role in which foods they choose. While it sounds great on the surface, this shift away from taste to convenience has […]