Designing with Behavioral Economics

Austrian economics states that preference drives economic decisions, is behavioral economics supposed to be an offshoot? Is behavior not a resultant of our preference for a desired outcome?

I'm nearly certain that the vast, vast majority of living economists would agree that preferences drive economic decisions.

In that case, what would they say drives economic decisions?

You can take a look at Dan Ariely's fascinating talk about the topic from DLD http://www.dld-conference.com/videos/video/predictably-irrat...

I also liked his book, also called "Predictably Irrational": http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expande...

He also has a really good TED talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code....

He talks about how people's moral standards and decisions are influenced by the environment they are put in.

Hard to believe that the video is real. Some of the other findings are pretty interesting though.