July 20, 2009 
I’ve just begun reading and thinking through the book Predictably Irrational. So far, I’ve found it fascinating. Additionally, for those of you without the time to read, I’d recommend following Dan Ariely’s blog.
One of his posts from last month is interesting and lays out three ways that conceptual consumption affects people’s physical consumption (and provides a link to the details on the research):
- Consuming expectations
- Consuming goals
- Consuming memories
I think this area of behavioral economics is critical to Enabling Healthy Decisions (SM). Since in most cases, we already have a framework or anchor price for our healthcare it becomes increasingly challenging to reframe the issue and change behavior. But, these insights around peer pressure and message framing that evoke different memories or emotions are significant insights for us in the communication space.
I would like to hear your description of “healthy decisions”.
Schemas