Thread by @AnnieDuke

So much gratitude to @R_Thaler, not just for blurbing #QUIT, but for his support from the beginning of the writing process. Richard is such a giant in the field of behavioral economics. His research is so foundational to the ideas in the book.

@R_Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel prize in Economic Sciences, was kind enough to hop a zoom call with a stranger to discuss our bias against quitting. That first call turned into many more over the course of a year.

He also read many early drafts, offering deeply insightful comments on how to make the book better. I am so honored to have had his thought partnership, who wouldn’t be?

@R_Thaler pointed out the omission in the early drafts of #QUIT of a discussion of mental accounting and the aversion we have to closing mental accounts in the losses, a topic that he has written extensively about.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.100…

Specifically, once we start something, we open a mental account. If we accrue losses for that account, we will be averse to quitting as we don’t want to close accounts in the losses. This means that we will irrationally stick with paths that are not going well.

Back in 1980, @R_Thaler published a seminal paper, "Toward a positive theory of consumer choice", which was the first to identify the sunk cost effect as a general phenomenon.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

This same paper identified the endowment effect, a bias where we value things we own much more than identical things we don’t own. @R_Thaler
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Both sunk cost & endowment contribute to our bias against quitting. Sunk cost prevents us from stopping things for fear we'll have wasted what we have already spent if we quit.

Endowment makes us put a higher value on things we own (including our beliefs) which makes it harder to quit them.

@R_Thaler coauthored a seminal book in behavioral economics. _Nudge_ along with @CassSunstein. This book is a must-read in the space and a perennial bestseller, exploring how we can architect our environment to encourage better decision making. amazon.com/Nudge-Final-Ri…

@R_Thaler also talks about sludge, the opposite of a nudge, where environments are architected to make rational decisions harder, like the endless, unintuitive forms that bureaucracies favor.

@Richard_Thaler is the author of _Misbehaving_, an autobiographical account of the struggle to transform economics from old school rational actor theory to our modern understanding of human behavior & cognitive bias.

amazon.com/Misbehaving-Be…

The thing about Misbehaving, and what you should also know about @R_Thaler, is that the book is really funny. Richard is so able to laugh at himself. He is really charming…a bonus to go with his considerable intellectual heft.

I so treasure the gift that I got in the opportunity to learn from him.

I am leaving out a huge amount of his work simply because this thread would go on for about 100 posts if I tried to cover it all. That being said, his work on irrationality in pro-sports decisions is awesome & definitely ask him his opinion on how to improve scoring in tennis!

I am so grateful for his hand in #QUIT. Thank you, @R_Thaler for everything you have done for me & my work.

@R_Thaler Here is @R_Thaler’s blurb: “Every business school has a course in starting new businesses, but few have a course in shutting them down at the right time. This book fills that gap with brilliant new insights and fantastic stories.

"Quit what you are doing right now and start reading this book." - @R_Thaler