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Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

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Manufacturer: HarperCollins
List Price: $25.95
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• Why do our headaches persist after taking a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a 50-cent aspirin?
• Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught?
• Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?
• Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full?
• And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're in control. We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same types of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.

From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. Predictably Irrational will change the way we interact with the world—one small decision at a time.

DESCRIPTION:

Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.83
EAN: 9780061353239
Format: Rough-Cut Edge
ISBN: 006135323X
Label: HarperCollins
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2008-02-19
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 2008-02-19
Studio: HarperCollins


SIMILAR ITEMS:

• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
• The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Vintage)
• Outliers: The Story of Success
• Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive


CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

Customer Rating:
Summary: Shockingly Amazed!
Comment: I first viewed his presentation on TED and was intrigued with what he had to say, but found quickly that his full research was groundbreaking in it's own right. Although many aspects of his research are unconsciously a part of our daily lives and sometimes even overlooked due to their mundane functions, the way he ties them together proves, to me at least, to be shockingly revealing of how truly predictable and simple we actually are. The book has strong evidence and interesting arguments, but deserves no more than a through skim, or light read, however you want to look at it, just as long as the essence is taken from the book and applied to your actions and decisions of your life! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Customer Rating:
Summary: An interesting populist review of rationality that draws overly broad conclusions
Comment: I thought the book was engaging and well-presented because each experiment is laid out as an interesting little story. Overall, I think he gives us good and useful information about what to be on the lookout for in our daily lives to recognize the irrationality of our own behavior.

That said, I think that in an attempt to tell a compelling story overall, Ariely over-states the implications of his research as undermining standard economic theory. Over and over again he says that, "standard economic modeling relies on participants being rational", but I don't think that he adequately makes the case that this is true. It seems to me that his general problem is that he is drawing broad conclusions from a narrow data set. His experiments show that individuals act irrationally, but they don't say anything about the aggregate behavior of irrational actors. His failure to draw this distinction is characteristic of the logical leaps of this book in general - wherein it seems to me he draws unsupported and overly broad conclusions from his results.

Overall, I think that the book is worth reading just for the information about his experimental results - which certainly seem worth knowing about for anyone who is interested in more carefully building up a picture of how decisions are made.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not useful
Comment: This is one of those books I'd call interesting, but not really useful or groundbreaking. There's been a lot of work done over the past few decades about people and in particular investors behaving "irrationally" in other words counter to how you'd rationally plan to act. But his experiments are interesting (though I'd be curious to see some of his data and how he collected it). Still, its a fun airplane ride read. The major takeaway is people act irrationally, and you might too.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Valuable and entertaining
Comment:
All of us believe-- and love to believe-- that we're completely rational, moral beings who base our decisions on our educated backgrounds. At the same time, we realize that most people (though not us, of course...) invest poorly, buy useless stuff, and generally make a mess of their lives by making poor decisions. Why is that? This book answers that question in a thoughtful, readable, and entertaining way.

The author describes a series of experiments he and his academic colleagues have carried out over the years and explains how they describe our decision-making processes. The general thrust of the book is while we believe we are acting in completely rational ways, we are in fact "predictably irrational." That is, our thought processes follow patterns that are almost completely unknown to us. As a result, we very often make poor decisions.

For example, we tend to assume that high-price or perceived scarcity indicates high quality. For this reason, a one-cent aspirin doesn't work nearly as well as a fifty-cent aspirin, even though both aspirins come from the same bottle. Similarly, a glass of beer described as an expensive micro-brew tastes much better than a run-of-the-mill tap beer, even though the micro-brew is actually the tap beer with a couple of drops of balsamic vinegar added.

This kind of predictable irrationality has huge implications we might not realize. For example, we believe that expensive medical care is better than low-cost care, so we demand it-- at a cost of billions every year.

The book is packed with similar analysis. That would make it a good enough example of the relatively new field of behavioral economics to recommend highly. However, Dan Ariely's writing style makes it THE example of that field to recommend. He's smart without being dull or condescending; thorough without being cumbersome; and witty without being cutsie. The result is a serious academic book that's also a quick, entertaining read.

That's no small thing. This book will richly repay you for the time you spend reading it. I recommend it most highly.

Customer Rating:
Summary: hidden agendas
Comment: A good insight on why people make the decisions they do and how one may present alternatives to get the results he wants.

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