Project Title: behavioral econ! 

Essential Question(s):

How can economists prove that behavioral economics is real?

What are subtle ways economists can influence people to make smarter financial decisions?

How can a personal understanding of behavioral economics help us make smarter financial decisions?

Statement of Purpose

For my Senior Project, I will… be conducting a series of behavioral economics experiments through different means of data collection and document my results, research, and hypotheses along the way. 

 

Overview: Describe your topic and project to the committee.

For my senior project, I will be conducting a series of behavioral economics experiments. Each week I will study, prepare, execute, and analyze an experiment. For example, if I spent a day with someone and said the number four many times, but at the end of that day, they are much more likely to buy four cookies rather than two. Similarly, in the real world, if someone saw the number nine a lot in a day (billboard, stop signs, elevators, etc) they would find a $199.99 TV much more appealing than one for $200. As my final project, I will present each experiment conducted along with an analysis of their results and graphs. This will challenge me to create my own algorithms to calculate and categorize data and help me think critically and creatively. 

 

Resource List 

(list will grow as the project progresses)

 

movies/documentaries: 

• Capital, in the twenty-first century – Netflix 
• American Factory – Netflix
• The mind explained – Netflix
• Broken – Netflix
• Margin call – amazon 
• Money for nothing: inside the federal reserve – amazon

Podcasts:

• Freakonomics – Spotify 
• circular economics – Spotify
• behavior economics in marketing – Spotify

 

Daily Plan & Schedule & Documentation Plan & How will you measure your success?

 

To make up 30 hours each will I’ll work 7 hours on Mondays and Tuesdays, 6 hours on Wednesdays, and 5 hours on Thursdays and Fridays. On Mondays, after coming home from my cohort meeting, I will listen to three podcast episodes and make summary videos for each episode, write up consent forms for the experiment that week, research and find examples of the logging method I will use, and practice the experiment/make sure I have everything set up. Tuesdays will be experiment days and time to take notes on the process throughout. On Wednesdays, I will enter all the data to my computer, log it in the format I researched that Monday, listen to two podcast episodes and make summary videos. On Thursdays, I will write an explanation for the week’s experiment (how it went, what I was hoping to prove, results, and logging/ data analysis explanation) and format is to fit in the final presentation. On Fridays I will edit what I put in the final presentation, turn all my video summaries of podcast episodes into written paragraphs and watch one of the 6 economics documentaries I selected for the course of the project.

 

Material Needs

 

For my project, all the items I need and will be making myself or already have. Spreadsheet, graphing, logging materials are all in google docs or google sheets. I will write consent forms and already have access to the podcasts I’m following through Spotify and the documentaries I’m watching through Netflix, amazon prime, HBO, and youtube. Because the people participating in these experiments are my friends and family I do not need to reach out to others to confirm their participation.

 

Backup Plan

N/A