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Adam Alter

About

Adam Alter is an author, and Assistant Professor of Marketing at New York University Stern School of Business. He also has an affiliated appointment in NYU’s Psychology Department.

Alter’s first book, Drunk Tank Pink (And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave) will be published by Penguin Press in March 2013. Like his research, the book focuses on the sometimes surprising effects of subtle cues in the environment on human cognition and behavior.

Alter's research has been published in more than a dozen journals, including Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Professor Alter’s studies have also been featured on CNBC, PBS and BBC Radio, and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Newsweek.

Books by Adam Alter
Recent Posts
Making Better Decisions with the Right Inputs
The wrong pieces of information--even if they’ve been used unthinkingly for decades--should be scrutinized carefully. If mountaineers die because they’re too impulsive, or business leaders fail because they’re better suited to the nuts and bolts of backroom decisions, then those factors should be detected long before they corrupt an otherwise sound decision-making process.
Why It's Impossible to Measure Beauty, Happiness, and Wealth
How attractive are you? How happy are you? How financially comfortable are you?
These questions are deceptively simple, but many of the concepts that we measure in the social world are difficult to measure in the absence of reference points, so we're compelled to rely on constantly changing yardsticks.
The Folly of Crowds
Crowds are often wise, and we're in turn wise for listening to multiple voices when making decisions. For example, crowds are famously skilled when their members guess how many jelly beans fill a jar, or how much a large animal weighs. Sometimes, though, crowds are prone to lead us astray.
Limits in Human Imagination

For all its sophistication, our capacity to imagine alternative states is far from perfect. Even our deepest imaginings fall far short of complete immersion, and we're always left in psychological limbo somewhere between the present and a loosely sketched alternative.

For all its sophistication, our capacity to imagine alternative states is far from perfect. Even our deepest imaginings fall far short of complete immersion, and we're always left in psychological limbo somewhere between the present and a loosely sketched alternative.

Spotting Lies Amidst The Truth

Plenty has been written on the question of truth (and lie) detection--especially on how poorly we detect deception and, consequently, how to improve your chances of picking liars from truth tellers--but a couple of interesting and (mostly) recent findings that suggest that leakage is inevitable and detectable, as long as you know where to look.

Plenty has been written on the question of truth (and lie) detection--especially on how poorly we detect deception and, consequently, how to improve your chances of picking liars from truth tellers--but a couple of interesting and (mostly) recent findings that suggest that leakage is inevitable and detectable, as long as you know where to look.

Pretty Women Make Simple Men

Scholars, moralists, and writers have warned men to steer clear of beautiful women since antiquity. A spate of recent studies suggests that beautiful women can indeed be dangerous, because they inadvertently induce men to take risks, make mistakes, gamble, and generally behave impulsively.

Scholars, moralists, and writers have warned men to steer clear of beautiful women since antiquity. A spate of recent studies suggests that beautiful women can indeed be dangerous, because they inadvertently induce men to take risks, make mistakes, gamble, and generally behave impulsively.

When the Difference Between Punishment and Absolution Is Just Bad Luck

According to the law, and to common moral intuition, people who voluntarily commit wrongful acts should be blamed accordingly. That's why some homicides are prosecuted with more force than others, and premeditated murder warrants a tougher sentence than homicides caused by accident. But this intuition hits a brick wall when you try to explain why the shooter who kills and the shooter who misses experience strikingly different outcomes.

According to the law, and to common moral intuition, people who voluntarily commit wrongful acts should be blamed accordingly. That's why some homicides are prosecuted with more force than others, and premeditated murder warrants a tougher sentence than homicides caused by accident. But this intuition hits a brick wall when you try to explain why the shooter who kills and the shooter who misses experience strikingly different outcomes.

The Perils of Subtle Miscommunication

According to Alabaman law, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket. It's easy to make fun of the legal system for these isolated but obvious examples of legislative silliness, but the law is far more dangerous when its shortcomings are masked-when players in the legal process who appear to be communicating are actually talking at cross-purposes.

According to Alabaman law, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket. It's easy to make fun of the legal system for these isolated but obvious examples of legislative silliness, but the law is far more dangerous when its shortcomings are masked-when players in the legal process who appear to be communicating are actually talking at cross-purposes.

On Paul the Octopus and the Human Penchant for Patterns

People are fascinated with oracles, with the ability of man and beast to divine the undivinable relying on a combination of intuition and obscure rule-based algorithms. Life is a series of confounding coincidences and inexplicable flukes, so we're drawn to anything--oracles, prophets, rulebooks, statutes, religious doctrines--that purport to make order of the chaos.

People are fascinated with oracles, with the ability of man and beast to divine the undivinable relying on a combination of intuition and obscure rule-based algorithms. Life is a series of confounding coincidences and inexplicable flukes, so we're drawn to anything--oracles, prophets, rulebooks, statutes, religious doctrines--that purport to make order of the chaos.