Sheena Iyengar

Sheena Iyengar ( born November 29, 1969 in Toronto ) is a psychologist and expert in decision theory.

She teaches as a professor of behavioral economics at Columbia Business School.

Life

Sheena Iyengar's parents had emigrated from Delhi to Canada. 1972 the family moved to Flushing, where her father helped to build the first permanent Sikh temple. 1979 the family moved to Elmwood Park (New Jersey).

At the age of three years Iyengar was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary disease that destroyed their retina and let go blind. When she was 13, her father died of a heart attack.

Iyengar 1992 left the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and a BA in psychology. Then she did research at Stanford University and in 1997 for Ph.D. doctorate in social psychology. Her dissertation, " Choice and its Discontents " examines the circumstances under which it may be better to have limited or no choices; the work was awarded in 1998 by the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the award for best dissertation.

Publications

  • How Much Choice is Too Much? Contributions to 401 ( k) Retirement Plans
  • When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing? (PDF, 1.6 MB)
  • Rethinking the Value of Choice: A Cultural Perspective on Intrinsic Motivation ( PDF; 3.1 MB)
  • The Art of Choosing (2010)
Flushing, Queens Integrated Authority File
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