Goodbye video

(Dan Ariely)
♫ Wise men say...♫

No.
Should I sing? Not really, uh?

(A woman, off, laughs, then:) No, really you shouldn't sing, no.

(Ariely) This is Aileen saying I shouldn't sing.

So, I try all kinds of things,
sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

Singing, clearly, is not one of them.

I wanted to thank you
for taking this class.

As you can see, I'm unshaved and tired.

It's because it has been
a very long period.

It was taxing and demanding,
but also very enjoyable.

But I want to link something, kind of
broad, about the experience,

to something we learned about.

So you remember the principle
of loss of urging.

The principle of loss of urging is that
we suffer more from negative things

than we enjoy positive things.

And it is this asymmetry that
going below is painful,

going above is just not that happy.

And I discovered that, of course,
we all experience it in our day-to-day lives.

For me, one of the strongest case was
when I wrote my first book.

Mostly, I got very good reviews,

but there was one review
that was just terrible.

And you know what?

I remember that review in much more detail
than I remember the positive ones,

which is our tendency to focus
on the negative things.

And actually, the same thing, basically,
happened in the class.

You know, from time to time, we had
people in the class who complained.

And we had people who complained
on the fora,

we had people who called Duke,

we had a few people who kind of made
our lives very, very difficult

and if I think about the balance,

then most of you have been appreciative,
and fantastic, and helpful,

very few have been negative,

but the problem is that the negative
comments loom so large.

The vast, vast, vast majority of you were
so helpful, and

kind of, I felt, came to the rescue, then
basically tried to even out

the forces of ev--- no, tried to even out
the negative comments.

And I really appreciated this, you know,
this is an effort that we're doing

out of our feeling of camaraderie
and participation and helpfulness

and we are delighting in participating
in this community

that formed together for a few weeks
to study together social science

and learn and reflect and think together,

and it's been a great experience.

And there is no question
that I'm paying much more attention

to the negative comments,
and there is no question

that they've impacted my well-being
in the last few weeks,

and all the people who have been involved
in the class for the last few weeks

to a larger degree, but I do think
incredibly fondly about

the people who have been positive

and I think, this has been
such a force of good and you know,

I think this is one of the things
that is incredibly important:

how do we create a community?

How do we create a community that,
even when there's some outliers

who try to make things not as good
for everybody,

how do we make sure the community strives
and continues and so on?

And you know, we do learn from the bad,
so that's good,

but I do want to remember the positive.

So, what is the big positive positive?

I'll tell you, when I look
at the activity around,

I feel that we've created a community
of people who care about research

and people who care about each other,

and people who are interested
in the same topic:

we gathered around the world, and
people spent a substantial amount of time

listening to me, talking to each other,
reading papers.

And that kind of activity,

that kind of ability for people to get
together across the world and do something

together in social science
is really exciting.

And that, for me, is the biggest positive
impact, and I thank you all

-- save for a few of you --
for participate in it.

So thank you very much.
Now I'm going to sleep for a few days

and hopefully, we'll see you online
at some point.

Bye for now.

♫ Wise men say: only fools rush in♫
♫but I...♫

[cah Center for Advanced Hindsight
an advanced insight production]