Series
Shaw Foundation Lecture
Designing Happiness: Building a Well-lived Joyful Life
Open To
SMU Community, Public
Event Image
Synopsis
The figure above demonstrates the Müller-Lyer illusion, where equal-length lines appear different due to cognitive processing, illustrating how perceptions can mislead us – a key concept in Behavioural Economics. This field explores how psychological attributes affect economic decisions. Our lecture will first examine examples of how these attributes lead to seemingly irrational decisions. Then we will discuss leveraging an understanding of behavioural biases to subtly influence decision-making contexts, nudging individuals towards more desirable choices.
Speaker
Speaker Details
Bill Burnett
 | Bill Burnett is an Adjunct Professor and the Executive Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering - Product Design at Stanford and has worked in industry and academia ever since. He teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programme in Design as well as classes at Stanford d.school (or the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, Stanford’s university-wide hub where students apply design thinking to present-world problems). In addition, he has advised student-founded startups and worked in both startups and Fortune 100 companies, including seven years at Apple designing award-winning notebook computers and several years in the toy industry designing Star Wars toys. He is the co-founder and Managing Director of Designing Your Life Institute, an educational non-profit that promotes life design skills in Singapore and across Southeast Asia. Bill is also the co-author of Designing Your Life, a New York Times #1 best-seller and a book that captures lessons from 16 years of teaching the Stanford class of the same name. In 2020, he co-authored Designing Your New Work Life, the second edition of which was published to address work after the global COVID pandemic. Both books are based on design thinking and positive psychology and attempt to help people answer the age-old question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” |
In Partnership With
