© 2026 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our daily newsletter, delivered first thing weekdays, keeps you connected to your community with news, culture, national NPR headlines, and more.

What Pushes Us To Work Hard — Even When We Don't Have To?

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Meaning Of Work.

About Dan Ariely's TED Talk

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely says we work hard not because we have to, but because we want to. He examines the intrinsic values we need to feel motivated to work.

About Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He is the author of the bestsellers Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty.

Through his research and his unorthodox experiments, he questions the forces that influence human behavior and the irrational ways in which we often all behave.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tags
NPR/TED STAFF
Thanks to you, WUSF is here — delivering fact-based news and stories that reflect our community.⁠ Your support powers everything we do.