Richard Thaler Quotes

The stigma that was once attached to things society deemed unhealthy served the purpose of making them undesirable. With the stigma gone, many people see little reason not to do whatever feels good at the moment.

The moral disapprobation of society has an impact on behavior in societies.

Morality aside, there are other factors deterring 'strategic defaults,' whether in recourse or nonrecourse states. These include the economic and emotional costs of giving up one's home and moving, the perceived social stigma of defaulting, and a serious hit to a borrower's credit rating.

Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal - a sort of 'voting' situation. But once the threshold is reached, then everyone demands to do whatever it is.

One of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to go about unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled dog, not under proper control.

Making something the norm is the only way of not making it a talking point.

In our society those who are in reality superior in intelligence can be accepted by their fellows only if they pretend they are not.

If enough people openly engage in conduct once considered reprehensible, we rewrite the rule book and assume that God, as a good democrat, will go along.

In 1976, divorce could still raise eyebrows, as could a woman's decision not to have children. Dyslexia wasn't as commonly recognized then, and thus not treated as it is today.

Our fear of hypocrisy is forcing us to live in a world where gluttons are fine, so long as they champion gluttony.

On the surface we all act like we all love each other and we're free and easy, and actually we're far more moralistic than any other society I've ever lived in.

I don't imagine my parents are too excited about my kind of life. The surrounding weirdness bothers them. Still, I think they're pretty good. Their lives are based on what their friends think, just like ours are.

I think what he loved about me the most was that I wasn't part of that world. But once we were together publicly, he wanted to change me into that social animal.

If people see me in some sort of niche, then that's fine. As long as it's not The Naked Guy, I don't care.

Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.

The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

I am different than some people would like me to be. I just don't buy into that the personal can be political.

Peer pressure is just that: pressure.

I know how easy it is for some minds to glide along with the current of popular opinion, where influence, respectability, and all those motives which tend to seduce the human heart are brought to bear.

The government has once again made the right socially acceptable.

I didn't grow up with any concept of people being deviants unless they mistreated others.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

Something I've always written about is social expectations: that the eyes of the community are on you all the time, expecting you to line up with certain social norms, certain behaviours. Whenever you forgot about them, they'd be strongly reiterated to you, in no uncertain terms.

We should go just as fast and as far as public sentiment would justify.