Dan Ariely is the James B Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. He is the founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight and co-founder of BEworks,[…]
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Research shows how wonderful religious beliefs are for morality in society, and for people’s behavioral decisions.
Question: Are faith and religion irrational?
Dan Ariely: So I think it’s a very helpful belief. So from that perspective I think it’s very useful. Thinking about dying is very unpleasant. It’s something that actually causes us not to take care of our savings and so on, so it’s very helpful. I also think that our research shows how wonderful religious beliefs are for morality in society, and for people’s decisions to behave . . . to behave well. So from many ways, I would say that religious beliefs are very helpful, are very positive, are very good ...individual and society.
Recorded on: Feb 19 2008
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