丹·艾瑞里

丹·艾瑞里（英语：Dan Ariely，1968年4月29日—）是一位拥有犹太人血统的美国心理学及行为经济学教授。他任教于杜克大学进阶后知之明中心（Center for Advanced Hindsight）。

生平

丹·艾瑞里出生于正值其父攻读美国哥伦比亚大学工商管理硕士之时，而于以色列拉马干拉马特沙龙为抚养长大。其母是一名缓刑犯观护员（英语: parole officer）。高中时，他积极参加以色列工作学习青年联盟（英语:Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed，希伯来语:הסתדרות הנוער העובד והלומד）的活动，而在有次活动时，因镁信号弹意外爆炸，导致他全身超过7成被烧伤。

艾瑞里起初在特拉维夫大学主修物理和数学，但是随后因为生理上的写作困难，他转修心理学与哲学。然而，在学业最后一年，他放弃哲学而专攻心理学，并获得心理学学士学位。他之后还取得了北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的认知心理学的硕士与博士学位，以及杜克大学的管理博士学位。

在取得了博士学位后，他在1998年至2008年期间任教于麻省理工学院，之后来到了杜克大学成为了其校心理学与行为经济学的詹姆士·杜克教授（一种用来授与带有卓越成就教授的头衔，专属于杜克大学的版本）。

著作

艾瑞里在发表学术论文之余，还出版了两本畅销书——《怪诞行为学》及《怪诞行为学2：非理性的积极力量》，两本皆名列为《纽约时报》的畅销书目。

家庭

艾瑞里已婚并育有二子。

Dan Ariely (Hebrew: דן אריאלי; born April 29, 1967) is an Israeli-American author and professor of business administration at Duke University. He is the co-founder of several companies implementing insights from behavioral science. Ariely wrote an advice column called "Ask Ariely" in The Wall Street Journal from June 2012 until September 2022. He is the author of the three New York Times best-selling books Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. He co-produced the 2015 documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies. Ariely's life, research, and book Predictably Irrational inspired the 2023 NBC television series The Irrational.

Since 2021, the accuracy of Ariely's studies has been called into question, with two articles retracted, two expressions of concern, several replication failures and allegations of data manipulation and fraud.

Family and personal life

Dan Ariely was born to Yoram and Dafna Ariely in New York City while his father was studying for an MBA at Columbia University. He has two younger sisters. The family emigrated to Israel when he was three years old. He grew up in Ramat Hasharon.

In his senior year of high school, Ariely was active in Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, an Israeli youth movement affiliated with the Labor Zionist movement. While he was preparing a ktovet esh (fire inscription) for a traditional nighttime ceremony, the flammable materials he was mixing exploded, causing third-degree burns to over 70 percent of his body. In his writings entitled "Painful Lessons", Ariely described his hospitalization and treatments, detailing how that experience led to his research on "how to better deliver painful and unavoidable treatments to patients".

Ariely was previously married to Sumedha (Sumi) Gupta in 1998; they have two children.

After a second manuscript of his was retracted for containing fabricated data, it was reported that Ariely is seeking political office under the banner of the Pirate Party of Israel.

Education and academic career

Ariely was a physics and mathematics major at Tel Aviv University but transferred to philosophy and psychology. In his last year, he dropped philosophy and concentrated solely on psychology, graduating in 1991. In 1994, he earned a master's degree in cognitive psychology and two years later a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed a second Ph.D. in business administration at Duke University in 1998, at the urging of Daniel Kahneman. Ariely taught at MIT between 1998 and 2008, where he was the Alfred P. Sloan professor of behavioral economics. Ariely was also part of the MIT Media Lab. In 2008, he returned to Duke University as the James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics. His laboratory at Duke, the Center for Advanced Hindsight, pursues research in subjects like the psychology of money, decision making by physicians and patients, cheating, and social justice.

According to Google Scholar, as of November 2025, Ariely had garnered more than 75,000 citations, and his h-index stood at 107.

Research

Ariely's research is in the area of consumer behavior, and he studies how people often make irrational decisions. Below are some common themes.

Critique of classical economic assumptions and consumer behavior

Ariely has challenged the assumptions of classical economics by showing that consumer valuations are influenced by arbitrary anchors and external cues. His research on the "Zero Price Effect" demonstrates how free products distort perceived value beyond rational cost-benefit logic.

Dishonesty and ethics

His studies have shown that people rationalize small acts of dishonesty to maintain a positive self-image, thus balancing moral integrity with personal gain.

Emotional influence on economic decisions

Ariely has examined how emotions like love or anger distort rational decision-making and self-control. His experiments have shown that emotional states can lead to riskier or less ethical economic choices.

Workplace motivation