Episode 12: The Dark Side of Experimentation

Have you signed a consent form to participate in an experiment recently? Ever done so?

You might answer no, but actually the odds are high you’ve been conscripted without ever knowing it. That’s the message in a new book, The Power of Experiments, by our Harvard Business School colleagues, Mike Luca and Max Bazerman. In this episode Mike describes both the positive and negative impacts of concealed research.

On the upside, it has taught public officials l how to increase organ donations significantly by having people opt out of such programs, instead of asking them to opt in. But on the downside, Facebook, without permission manipulate its user’s moods by how it framed their newsfeeds. And Amazon was caught sneaking unrequested gift suggestions into people’s wedding registries. To learn more about this troubling trend, listen in!