Thursday, September 9, 2010

Behavioral Economics iPhone App

Duke University Professor Dan Ariely (personal page, TED lecture) runs the Center for Behavioral Economics at Duke. I recently came across one of their iPhone Apps called "At a Boy". The general idea of the app is to give you a compliment when you need one. In that way, it gives you something to smile about or boost your self-esteem. I added this to my phone and indeed it gives you something to smile about: aside from getting a nice (albeit vacuous) compliment, some of the compliments (which users can submit) are hilarious. I just tried it and got the following:

You know, on anyone else that hat would look ridiculous. Somehow, you can pull it off.


Yes, I'm currently wearing a hat.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wait...so you're telling me that if I get this app. and keep playing it over and over my self esteem will increase without bound?

If you see someone around campus being the most brashly self confident person walking around, you know its the anonymous guy who posts here.