In his new book Drunk Tank Pink Adam Alter, an assistant professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, explains how subtle cues, such as the sound of someone’s name or the color of a room, can influence behaviors and thoughts. Alter discusses the book, and his research on the psychology of decision-making.

ALTER: “Drink Tank Pink” is a bright, Pepto-Bismol, bubblegum shade of pink, and psychologists stumbled on its miraculous effects, they called it miraculous, in the late ’70s and early ’80s. And they found that it – first of all they found that it calmed children down in schools in Canada. They were trying to work out how they could improve behavior.

And then they took it further, and they wondered whether it might also calm down some of the most aggressive people we come across, very aggressive prisoners. And that’s what they did. They painted the inside of drunk tanks or jail cells with this pink color, and they found that they were much calmer.

- I plan to buy and read this book by the end of summer.