Why do people consistently violate the predictions of traditional economic theory? What can psychology and neuroscience reveal about the choices we make every day? And how can understanding human decision-making reshape education, public policy, and the institutions we build?

Colin Camerer is the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics at the California Institute of Technology and one of the pioneers of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics. His research combines economics, psychology, and neuroscience to understand how people actually make decisions under uncertainty, risk, and social interaction. Through groundbreaking work on bargaining, trust, strategic behavior, and brain science, he has helped transform economics from a discipline based on idealized rationality into one grounded in human behavior.

In this episode, we explore why real human decision-making often departs from the assumptions of classical economics. Colin explains how biases, emotions, social preferences, and cognitive limitations shape our choices, and why understanding these patterns is essential for building better economic models. We discuss behavioral economics, game theory, and neuroeconomics, examining how laboratory experiments and advances in neuroscience have changed the way researchers think about cooperation, competition, and rationality.

Our conversation also turns to the educational implications of this work. If human judgment is shaped by predictable cognitive tendencies, then education should do more than transmit knowledge. It should help students recognize their own biases, improve their reasoning, and make wiser decisions in complex environments. This episode offers a fascinating exploration of how humans think, why we often act against our own interests, and what the science of decision-making can teach us about creating better individuals, institutions, and societies.