George Loewenstein, PhD: Information, Healthcare, and the Internet Age

Health Law Speaker Series
Presenting: Information, Healthcare, and the Internet Age
George Loewenstein, PhD

Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Decision Research
Carnegie Mellon University
PhD in Economics

Economists usually assume that information is valued to the extent, and only to the extent, that it helps people make better decisions.  This is obviously inaccurate, and inadequate for making sense of developments in the internet age. In this talk, Professor Loewenstein will discuss research on four phenomena that diverge from the economic assumption and are key to the information age: curiosity (the desire for information for its own sake), privacy (the desire to withhold information), information avoidance, and the desire to share information.  For each of these four phenomena, he will discuss applications to healthcare.