A recent Washington Post article ‘Is Neuroscience the New Freakonomics?’ makes us ponder if neuroscientists will soon make the mandatories list for agency consideration. And as always, we’d love to hear what you think.
The story goes that Economists have, over the last decade, become central to myriad business decisions thanks in part to the hugely successful Freakonomics series and other popular economics-based titles. This is certainly true of the marketing industry as heuristics and behavioural economics are solidly grounded as industry buzzwords these days.
But while economics principles would have us believe that humans are rational beings, this article challenges this notion by saying that indeed, we are not rational and that many of the choices we make as humans are driven by how our brain functions.
While the concept of humans as rational beings – as presented within economics texts – has been embraced by mainstream audiences, we have a hard time believing this will be the case for neuroscience. For example, if Apple were to announce that they have hired a top neuroscientist to help them to uncover how best to influence consumers to buy more eBooks, would this news be embraced? Or would it seem a bit too Brave New World or 1984 to swallow lightly?
What do you think? Will knowing that neuroscientists are involved in the boardroom and marketing suite take away the illusion of choice amongst consumer audiences? Will the concept be broadly embraced within the marketing world?
