Left Digit Bias w/ Dr. Bapu Jena and Bird-Catching Neanderthals
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about how “left digit bias” affects your decisions and why researchers caught birds in caves with their bare hands.
More from Dr. Bapu Jena:
- Listen to Freakonomics, M.D.: https://freakonomics.com/freakonomics-md/
- What Do Grocery Store Prices and Heart Surgery Have in Common? (Freakonomics, M.D. Ep. 4) - Freakonomics. (2021, August 27). Freakonomics. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/fmd-left-digit-bias/
- Follow @AnupamBJena on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnupamBJena
- Follow @DrBapuPod on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBapuPod
- Harvard faculty page: https://hcp.hms.harvard.edu/people/anupam-b-jena
Researchers studied Neanderthal hunting by catching thousands of birds w/ their bare hands by Briana Brownell
- Scientists Spent Years Pretending to Be Neanderthals Catching Birds by Hand. (2021). Vice.com. https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgmp4/scientists-spent-years-pretending-to-be-neanderthals-catching-birds-by-hand
- Smithsonian Magazine, & Gamillo, E. (2021, September 22). To Understand Neanderthal Night-Hunting Methods, Scientists Caught Thousands of Birds With Their Bare Hands in Spanish Caves. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-simulated-neanderthal-behaviors-by-catching-birds-with-their-bare-hands-180978737/
- Blanco, G., Sánchez-Marco, A., & Negro, J. J. (2021). Night Capture of Roosting Cave Birds by Neanderthals: An Actualistic Approach. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.733062
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. |
| 0:05.8 | I'm Cody Gough, and I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:07.8 | Today you learn about how left-digit bias affects everyday decisions, |
| 0:11.7 | with help from the host of the Freakonomics MD |
| 0:13.8 | podcast Dr. Baffu Jenna. You'll also learn why researchers studied Neanderthals by |
| 0:18.9 | catching thousands of birds with their bare hands. Let's satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:24.0 | We've talked a lot on this show about cognitive biases that affect our decision-making. |
| 0:29.0 | Well, it turns out that your doctor is not immune to those biases. |
| 0:34.0 | And our guest today is going to tell you about one interesting example. |
| 0:38.0 | Dr. Bapu Jenna is a professor at Harvard Medical School, |
| 0:41.0 | a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a faculty research |
| 0:45.0 | fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, with both an MD and a PhD in economics. |
| 0:51.4 | He's also the host of the new podcast, Frechonomics MD, which explores |
| 0:55.2 | fascinating ideas at the intersection of medicine, behavioral science, and economics. |
| 1:00.0 | Cody asked him a question that's actually the title of a recent episode. |
| 1:03.8 | What do grocery store prices and heart surgery have in common? |
| 1:07.8 | When you go to the grocery store and you see an item that's $4.99 |
| 1:11.6 | there's a reason it's $4.99 and the reason why is because the grocer |
| 1:16.3 | knows that you are more likely to buy that item than if it were $5. And it's not because |
| 1:21.2 | it's just a penny cheaper. Most people aren't so sensitive to just penny differences in prices. |
| 1:26.2 | The reason why is because the mind looks at that product that's $4.99, |
| 1:30.6 | and they see a 4 at the start of it and four is less than five so that item feels like it's a lot |
... |
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