In the Epstein filesthe collection of emails and documents from and about the deceased American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, new names of scientists who were in contact with him are continually being found. These often involve researchers who hoped that Epstein would finance their studies, but sometimes the contacts seem to go further. So conclude university magazine de Duke Chronicle and The New York Times that renowned psychologist Dan Ariely maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein.
Ariely is a writer of popular science books such as Wonderfully unfair (2012) and Money and behavior (2018). He was previously discredited because he had cooperated in an investigation into dishonesty in which data fraud turned out to have been committed. In 2024 he said that his name had been cleared; he is still a professor at Duke University. That university has announced that Ariely’s research center, the Center for Advanced Hindsight, will close at the end of June is cut back.
In January the Duke Chronicle through all 635 times Dan Ariely appears in the Epstein files. The two have met at least seven times, the magazine writes. And in 2012, Ariely asked for the name and email address of a red-haired woman he had met through Epstein: “She seemed very smart and I would like to meet her again,” he emailed. Epstein had already been convicted in 2008 of prostitution of an underage woman.
The New York Times emphasizes the increasingly warm tone of Ariely’s emails and quotes an email exchange in which Ariely reacts enthusiastically when Epstein says he has arranged a private tour of the Ferrari factory for him.
‘I was polite to him’
In response to NRC emails Ariely that he has only met Epstein four times, and that ideas from conversations with Epstein and other lawbreakers are in his book Wonderfully unfair have ended up. “At the time of our meetings, I was intensively researching dishonesty and crime and spoke to many people who had broken the law, such as Epstein,” Ariely emails. “I was polite to him, as I try to be to everyone, but our relationship was not friendship and he did not financially support any of my projects. Epstein never introduced me to anyone.”
For example, Ariely asked Epstein for him in 2011 to introduce Bernie Madoff. In the same email he also thanked Epstein “for a nice evening a while ago”, but Ariely says he never saw anything inappropriate. According to Ariely, Epstein said he had been rehabilitated and had turned away from criminal behavior.
“The attempts to link my name to his – and the insinuations that follow without any evidence – are very disturbing,” Ariely further emails. “But my personal grief is far less intense than the grief I feel for the immense and lasting suffering of his many victims.”
