[1] Norton worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow from 2002 to 2005 in both the MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT Media Lab.

In 2014, he was appointed Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration there.

[1] Norton is known for studying the effect of social factors on people's views and behavior, as well as the psychology of investment and individuals' valuing of goods.

[4] He has also researched subjects such as public perceptions of executive compensation,[5] racism,[6] and (with Dan Ariely) economic inequality in the United States.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the following year.