It’s only human to think that we are in charge of the decisions we make in life, but when you look at case studies, humans are very easily manipulated into making certain decisions because, as a species, we tend to avoid making complicated decisions. In this TED talk, Behavioral economist Dan Ariely shows that simple changes can drastically change the way we behave.
For example, when DMVs ask a person to opt in to organ donation, only around 10% of people volunteer. When they are asked to opt out if they do not want their organs donated, the number of organ donation volunteers jumps to around 100%. Dan explains that this is not because people don’t want to check a box, but because when a decision is difficult to make, people often choose to do nothing -in this case, opting to avoid checking the box whatever that decision means.
