Biography Angela Duckworth is co-founder, chief scientist, and a board member of Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance scientific insights that help children thrive. She is also the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faculty co-director of the Penn-Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative, and faculty co-director … Continued
By Meghan Ross
Angela Duckworth and her colleague Katy Milkman sat down with the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity (HCEO) Global Working Group to discuss their work on creating enduring behavior change.
From No Stupid Questions: DUCKWORTH: I know everyone says this is dumb, but I’m going to do it anyway. * * * DUCKWORTH: I’m Angela Duckworth. DUBNER: I’m Stephen Dubner. DUCKWORTH + DUBNER: And you’re listening to No Stupid Questions. Today on the show: Why do some people love horror movies? DUBNER: … Continued
From No Stupid Questions: By Angela Duckworth and Maria Konnikova KONNIKOVA: Look at that. Look at this. It’s a tiger. Wait, no, not it’s a tiger. It’s just a breaking news alert. What is this breaking news alert? Oh, the breaking news alert is about Kim Kardashian. * * * DUCKWORTH: I’m … Continued
From Freakonomics: DUCKWORTH: I’m Angela Duckworth. DUBNER: I’m Stephen Dubner. DUCKWORTH + DUBNER: And you’re listening to No Stupid Questions. Today on the show: How do you decide whether or not to have children? DUBNER: How many kids — one, two, three, 15, 25. How about zero? DUCKWORTH: Stephen, I’m going to read you an email from … Continued
Congratulations to CHIBE’s Angela Duckworth, PhD, MA, MSc, and Kevin Mahoney, MBA, who were named two of Phillymag’s 76 most influential Philadelphians. Dr. Duckworth, the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology, is a CHIBE-affiliated faculty member, while Mr. Mahoney, University of Pennsylvania Health System CEO, serves on CHIBE’s Internal Advisory Board. Phillymag praised Dr. … Continued
Have you ever made a commitment to exercise more often? You sign up with a gym and succeed for a time but soon, too soon, the enthusiasm fades. Eventually, your workout clothes gather dust and your gym membership does nothing but empty your wallet. In the short term, changing behavior is doable, even exciting, but … Continued
The biggest problem with humanity is humans themselves. Too often, we make choices — what we eat, how we spend our money and time — that undermine our well-being. An all-star team of academic researchers thinks it has the solution: perfecting the science of behavior change. Will it work? Now, there’s been plenty of progress … Continued
Featuring Angela Duckworth This podcasts features the following two questions: Question #1: Is it possible to be both self-interested and altruistic at the same time? Angela talks about her once-ongoing debate with psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant. You can learn more about Grant’s perspective on giving in his 2016 TED Talk. Grant was … Continued
We feel powerless over so many things in the pandemic. But learning to practice better self-control can help. When we’re under extreme stress, our brain works overtime to regulate our emotions, attention and behavior. “You can think of self-control as bandwidth,” says Angela Duckworth, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, who studies self-control. … Continued
“Decision science is a field that has gained currency in popular culture and the media. Two of the most famous practitioners have won the Nobel Prize in economics: Daniel Kahneman (in 2002), known for his experiments with his late collaborator Amos Tversky that showed how cognitive biases influence our judgments, and Richard Thaler (in 2017), who has … Continued
Angela Duckworth mentions the identifiable victim effect — the idea that a single individual’s story (an identifiable victim) is more compelling than a group of people with the same need (a statistical victim). George Loewenstein, Deborah Small and Jeff Strnad all contributed to the 2005 paper that discusses this theory. Listen to the full … Continued
By Angela Duckworth: When I wake up, I fill the orange plastic cup with water from the bathroom sink, drink it, brush my teeth, pad downstairs, turn on the electric kettle, grind coffee, and check my email while waiting for the water to boil. This is a pretty complex routine, but I’ve repeated it so … Continued
What sort of incentives increase vaccine takeup? Would winning lotteries help? Particular messages can be effective in encouraging vaccine uptake. Join Dr. Angela Duckworth as she shares her insights on vaccine behavior and incentives from behavioral science. Listen more at Freakonomics.