The Arnolfini Affair Lessons in Behavioral Economics.

Abstract

The Arnolfini Affair encapsulates and illustrates some of the key themes of the book Lessons in Behavioural Economics (2025). From the baits that feeds our confirmation bias, to the choice architecture, or the influence of more than just nudges. And all this masterfully hidden in plain sight by Van Eyck, as in Poe's The Purloined Letter, so that whoever dares to analyse with the rational system of thinking (Kahneman's System 2) can see what the emotional - the way of the heart - had already intuited and discovered. That human behaviour is exciting and that studying it brings us closer to our own knowledge. This is the mission entrusted to us by this portico of the Oracle of Delphi, dedicated to Apollo, the god of the Arts and Sciences.