Skip to 0 minutes and 13 seconds So my name’s Nick Chater. I’m Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. This is a MOOC for everyone. The aim of this MOOC is to introduce you to the science of human decision making. If you have a mind you’re interested in and you want to understand it better, then this is a course for you. Intuitively, we feel that our decisions are underpinned by rich and mysterious motives and beliefs. And I want to suggest that’s completely the wrong picture. We’re inventing them at the very moment of decision. There is no mental depth. Mental depth is an illusion. So this MOOC consists of six weeks of material.
Skip to 0 minutes and 49 seconds And each week, we’ll start with a paradox, some mystifying aspect of human behaviour, insights that have been gained over decades of psychological and behavioural research. We’ll talk to leading figures in government and industry. And you’ll have a chance to try out a classic psychological experiment online. Some of the really exciting things we’ll be looking at are why we take risks and why we fear them, how people succeed or fail to work with other people successfully, how our behaviour, governed by this plethora of complicated psychological forces, makes sense at all. One of the essences of that– I’ll suggest we are creating an improvised character and trying to stay in our role.
Skip to 1 minute and 25 seconds And finally, how can we make society more coherent– essentially, make a better world? We brought together a diverse range of people who thought very deeply in practical context about the nature of human behaviour. We’ll be talking to Rory Sutherland, ad man and behavioural economics impresario, Tim Harford, the Financial Times undercover columnist, Gus O’Donnell, former head of the Civil Service, and many other senior representatives in high-profile organisations. Warwick Business School has one of leading behavioural science groups in Europe, and it’s a great opportunity for us to share some of things we’ve learned over many decades of research.
Skip to 2 minutes and 0 seconds So if you’re interested in how your mind works, to understand better the people around you and the society you live in, join me for The Mind is Flat.
