Courtesy Swarthmore College

Barry Schwartz is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania.  He has been there since receiving his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.  Schwartz has written ten books and more than 100 articles for professional journals. In 2004, Schwartz published The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. It was named one of the top business books of the year by both Business Week and Forbes Magazine, and has been translated into twenty-five languages. Schwartz has published articles in sources as diverse as The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Parade Magazine, USA Today, Slate, Scientific American, The New Republic, Newsday, the Harvard Business Review, and the Guardian.  

Schwartz has appeared on dozens of radio shows, including NPR’s Morning Edition, and Talk of the Nation, and has been interviewed on Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), the Lehrer News Hour (PBS), The Colbert Report, and CBS Sunday Morning.  He has lectured the British and the Dutch governments, as well as trade organizations and businesses representing industries as diverse as healthcare, personal finance, travel and leisure, restaurants, supermarkets, consumer electronics, office supplies, software development, e-commerce, advertising, arts and entertainment, cable television, home building, and the military.  Schwartz’s most recent book, written with colleague Ken Sharpe, is Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing. Schwartz spoke about the paradox of choice at TED in 2005, and he spoke about practical wisdom at TED in 2009.  He has a new book, a TED book, called Why We Work that is due out in 2015.