Thank you for joining us! Some of this may seem pretty controversial to many but I don’t think it will to you. The new research released about the brain in the last 15 years necessitates a reconsideration of any and everything that we thought we knew about just about everything especially issues of public policy.
Here you will find links to the modules, scholarly articles, related interviews, and many other resources providing evidence-based research. May this serve as a central hub from which you and I can find things to help make us think and grow and evolve.
Neuroeconomics is a new multidisciplinary field that combines genetics, biology, neuroscience, economics, psychology and the social sciences to form a more comprehensive theory of human behavior including how we make decisions. Each of these disciplines by themselves have their own biases because of certain inherent assumptions that makes their explanation about certain concepts incomplete but not quite so when they are considered together.
We make decisions in a social context and those decisions are effected by a variety of factors that we do not often consider including: Choice Architecture; Priming; and Cognitive Biases. Even chemicals that we may come in contact with and other potentially intrusive factors may impact our decision making. Internal factors specific to the nervous system, pituitary glands, etc can also have an affect
This is an attempt to apply the new evidence-based research to the issues surrounding certain societal ills. Hopefully, we can develop something that can provide meaningful assistance to those in oppressed groups as well as potentially people of all populations.
Often we want to explain social issues such as inequality, the justice system, racism, etc. within the framework of normative decision making when in truth we should be trying to understand it all within a descriptive framework. In other words, we should stop focusing only on how people should be making decisions based on what would provide optimal results without focusing on how people actually make decisions. This is what is required if we are to understand why the “nicest” most well-meaning people perpetuate the worst societal ills as well as why seemingly knowledgeable people often vote against their own best interest.
My hope is to:
* first help people take pause to question and reflect
* then provide them with evidence to help them understand more about some of the mechanisms of our powerful yet vulnerable minds as well as other data through the Neuroeconomic framework
* a better understanding of how we make decisions leads to a better understanding of the cognitive biases that exist as well as other factors affecting everyone’s decision-making
* realizations of these truths leads to forgiveness of ourselves to lessen the load that drains the life from us
* citing evidence-based tools to help us refocus on self-enriching programming
* Ultimately which leads each of us to find the wisdom within ourselves to develop a greater sense of self appreciation, compassion and empathy for ourselves and others so we may ultimately break the chains that keep us mentally enslaved and recognize the ties that bind us all together
What if you knew… 