Neuroeconomics: poking around inside the brain
Photo by Gaetan Lee on Flickr
Each choice that you make as an individual is decided by a society of billions: namely, the billions of neurons that populate your brain. Economics, being the science of choice, has until recently treated the human being as a black box rather than looking inside. That has changed with the advent of neuroeconomics, a branch of science which examines what those cells are doing when people are making choices.
Neuroeconomists have studied blood-flow to find where the brain measures uncertainty; measured hormones in subjects’ saliva and their effect on impulsive decisions; and worn conductive caps to measure brain activity while they make a purchase.
The questions thrown up by neuroeconomics include whether we are really rational, or destined to be biased, and whether it will be possible in the future to read off someone’s preferences with a powerful brain scan. In an article for Slate and a recent programme on BBC Radio 4, Tim Harford discusses the potential power of this emerging discipline.
Tim Harford writes both the ‘Undercover Economist‘ and ‘Dear Economist‘ for the Financial Times.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:49 am
Great article. It’s very unfortunate that over the last one decade, the travel industry has already been able to to tackle terrorism, SARS, tsunamis, influenza, swine flu, and the first ever true global economic depression. Through it the industry has proven to be powerful, resilient and also dynamic, obtaining new strategies to deal with trouble. There are constantly fresh troubles and opportunity to which the sector must again adapt and respond.