‘Freakonomics’ is a way of seeing, author says

From the Charleston Gazette

By Sarah K. Winn

Staff writer


Stephen Dubner, author of the widely popular “Freakonomics,” had a few expectations of the audience prior to his speech at Charleston’s Clay Center on Tuesday night.

“Somehow, they think freakonomics will give them that edge in business,” he said. “They are mostly wrong...What I hope they do get out of it is a way of looking at the world.”

Dubner was the speaker at the Charleston Area Alliance’s third annual celebration.
Dubner co-authored “Freakonomics,” a book of real-world examples of how economics works that spent 50 weeks on the New York Times bestseller’s list.

Dubner and co-author, economist Steven Levitt, also maintain a popular Web site, www.freakonomics.com, and write a monthly column in The New York Times Magazine.
Why do people lie?

Dubner began his speech with a quiz.

He asked the audience to raise their hand if they don’t wash their hands after using a public restroom. No hands were raised.

“Some of you are lying,” he quipped.

He knows. He keeps track during his various travels and has found that only about 70 percent of people actually do.

So, why do people lie?

“The circumstances under which a question is asked affects the answer,” he said. “And, in freakonomics, we try to show what people actually do, as opposed to what they will say they will do.”

Freakonomics (and economics in general) is also about how people respond to incentives, he said.

He pointed to doctors at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and its recent hand washing problems. The doctors were not meeting the hand washing requirements and the hospital created a committee to solve the problem, he said.

After going through the normal behavior changing procedures — sending out memos, giving the doctors hand sanitizer as they walked in the door, and offering Starbucks gift certificates to doctors who followed the procedures — nothing really changed, he said.

The solution came from an out-of-the-box maneuver from a doctor who took germ samples from the hospital’s executives’ hands and analyzed them. A picture of an unidentified executive’s hands, swimming with microbes, was then broadcast as a screen saver on every computer in the hospital, he said.

Soon, hand washing by doctors was at 100 percent.

“This illustrates ... that we never really know what incentives are going to work and which are going to backfire,” he said. “[Our job] is trying to find out the right combination of incentives that work.”

Also, freakonomics is about looking for instances of conventional wisdom that turn out to be untrue, he said.

For example, academics have said that people are innately generous.
However, looking at the data from a different angle — examining outside factors like selection bias and emotions — finds that people really aren’t that generous, he said.
“In the simplest terms, freakonomics is about examining data in a quest to challenge commonly held truths,” he said.

“Forget about what you know about a subject and look at it in a new way,” he said.
Expect the Best award


Also, during the event, the Charleston Area Alliance announced its Expect the Best from West Virginia award winners. BrickStreet Insurance, Highland Hospital and the central West Virginia chapter of the American Red Cross received the honor.

Scholarship winners

The 2007 College Summit scholarship winners were also announced. They included Kendall Adams, South Charleston High School; Samuel Sarcone and Yolanda Whitfield, both of George Washington High School; Rachel Adams, Herbert Hoover High School; and Ashley Hudson, Riverside High School.
Each was awarded a $1,000 college scholarship and a laptop computer.

Finally, the Alliance announced a new international business making their home in the Kanawha Valley. DPR, LLC, an Italian flexographic printing company, will move in the Alliance’s incubator office space until it can secure a permanent facility.
To contact staff writer Sarah K. Winn, use e-mail or call 348-5156.