Payoff

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University where he founded and directs the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He suffered catastrophic burns as a teen, and reflecting on his ordeal as a “pain person” – one who knows, feels and thinks only pain – led him to consider motivation, its sources, its mysterious nature, and what inspires or impedes it.

Ariely’s brief meditation – full of engaging anecdotes and weirdly inconclusive lab experiments – offers a charming discussion of the unknowability of motivation. He writes movingly and with great originality about connection, psychology, the humane workspace and the human experience.