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Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Dan Ariely

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Profile Image for Petra It's a year now, still in a dark place.
Petra It's a year now, still in a dark place
2,456 reviews35.1k followers
November 6, 2022
“I asked them why when they persecute men, for religion or colour it was seen by the world as oppression and when they persecute women, it was dismissed as tradition.” Emer Martin

This book is generally brilliant if you ignore the misogyny. It is a book written by a man about a man's world for men. The "Our' in the title does not include half the world.

The misogny, the putting down of fat women, ugly ones, old ones in this often otherwise insightful and percipient book is making me groan. The author is trying to prove something we all know, that we (he uses 'we' and 'our' to sound inclusive, but he only means men really) do not make good decisions when sexually aroused. To that end he sets up an experiment where the men, MIT students, will have to answer a set of questions 'sober' and while they are wanking to pictures of buxom young women flashed on their computers.

The questions include, Would you want to have sex with a really fat woman? An ugly one? A woman over 50? All the undesirable women.

All these women are put down as sexual objects these really clever guys wouldn't want to have sex with unless they were so aroused by any stimuli they didn't care. That their general powers of discernment and decision-making ie. we don't screw fat,ugly or old women, would go by the board because at that stage they'd screw anything. Also, that in such an aroused state, those clever MIT men, future leaders of technology and business, perhaps even footballers) those men might deliberately get a woman drunk and/or persist in pushy or downright aggressive sexual advances even after she had said 'no' and they wouldn't give a monkeys about using a condom either.

(Part of me wonders how those men felt who had girlfriends who didn't look like supermodels).

Personally I think he wrote up the experiment so as he could begin with describing the visual of a cling-film (saran wrap to Americans) wrapped computer (to protect it from splashes of semen) flashing porn and questions and a man 'furiously wanking with his left hand' while propped up on the bed.

Ok, so I'm predictably irrational about books that slag off my half the human race. You know that I will pick up the misogyny and be compelled to write about it.
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Mary
393 reviews
September 28, 2008
This book was somewhat entertaining, but I can't really recommend it. The author does experiments with college students and beer, and extrapolates this into a world view. Most of his applications are anecdotal.
Here's an example on p. 215: "Iran is another example of a nation stricken by distrust. An Iranian student at MIT told me that business there lacks a platform of trust. Because of this, no one pays in advance, no one offers credit, and no one is willing to take risks. People must hire within their families, where some level of trust exists. Would you like to live in such a world?" Excuse me, but I prefer to base my world view on more than just the impressions of 1 college student, but this is an example of how he doesn't use logic to come to his conclusions. Here's another tidbit on p. 218 "...drug companies cheat by sending doctors and their wives off on posh vacations." Using Ariely's logic, this means that all doctors are male, or the women doctors are all lesbians with wives. His experiments on cheating have flaws. Since the "cheating" group scored more than the "non-cheating" group, the cheating group MUST have cheated; but they were allowed to destroy their answer sheets. There is no proof that this group cheated; they could have just come from a higher level class, or had more coffee.
Did you notice how he leads you to the conclusions he wants you to reach? Would an objective researcher characterize one of his subjects as "a clever master's student with a charming Indian accent?" Wouldn't you be more likely to agree with the conclusion than if the participant was a "clever hunchback with an aversion to bathing?" He ascribes all kinds of emotions to his subjects throughout the book. It's not that it isn't worth a read - just realize he's working on your predictability to lead you to his conclusions.
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Trevor
1,401 reviews23.4k followers
October 9, 2008
It is important that you move this one up your list of books that you have to read. This is a particularly great book. My dear friend Graham recommended I read this book. He has recommended four books to me – and the only one I couldn’t finish was “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist: A novel” by Mark Leyler – but he did recommend, “The Tetherballs of Bougainville” also by Leyler and that is still one of the most remarkable books I’ve ever read. I haven't written a review of that book, but where the hell would I start?

When I’m reading books I often think – you know, I would like to re-write this. I would cut out a lot of the fluff and perhaps change the voice a bit, add some cellos, perhaps even a bassoon (there is nothing that can’t be improved with some cellos and a bassoon). But not this book. I really, really liked this book.

This is a companion to Freakonomics – except I liked this one even more. Which reminds me that I must look how many stars I gave that one so that I can give this one more… If I am going to be irrational I might as well work at being consistently irrational.

Which is the point of this book. Economic Rationalism – otherwise known as the nonsense that got us into this mess – holds that the world is full of rational economic units and you are just one of those units. We always know what is good for us, we are free to choose what we need and we invariably make the choices that reflect our best interests. The absurdity of this view is being played out as I type with the world financial markets in meltdown and with the new Prime Minister of Japan saying today – “Honestly, this for us is beyond our imagination. We have huge fears going ahead," Which I believe is Japanese for, “The fundamentals are all in place. We have nothing to worry about.”

Like Freakonomics this presents a series of experiments to show how we behave under various circumstances in ways that are both less than rational and yet perfectly predictable. I’m going to have to spoil bits of this book, but just to show you how wonderful it is and why you need to run to your local purvayour of tantalising texts to obtain your copy of this fine book.

I guess one could group a lot of the experiments in this book under the general title of Placebo Effect. This makes two books in a row in which the Placebo Effect has been given a starring role and I’m, quite frankly, in seventh heaven. One of the questions this book seeks to answer is whether social stereotypes have an impact on a person’s performance. THIS IS THE SPOILER – SO LOOK AWAY IF YOU MUST.

What do we know? Well, we definitely know that all Asians are brilliant at mathematics. This is as true as the fact that anyone with an English accent is a mass murderer – or at least, that is definitely true in that strange world that is American movies and IRA propaganda. The other thing you know about mathematics is that all women are hopelessly, pathetically, mathematically inept. What is it about that Y chromosome?

You might have noticed that the particular Venn Diagram I am describing here has a rather interesting intersection – that is, woman who have a preference for thinking of themselves as Asian. Let’s see if we can’t mess around with the minds of this particular sub-set of humanity.

We are going to give them a bit of a maths test in a minute – but before we do, let’s ‘prime’ them. Let’s ask half of them some questions related to them being Asian (not too obvious, let’s just ask questions like how many languages do you speak, what is your migrant experience – you know, vague enough so we aren’t directly saying “THINK ASIAN, THINK ASIAN” at them, but actually, when you think about it a little bit, that is exactly what we are doing). The other half we will ask questions that make them think about themselves being female – when was the last time you bought Cosmo or ‘Are those really your nails?’

Anyway, then you give them the maths test. And guess what? The Asians who have been primed to think of themselves as women did worse on the test than the women who were primed to think of themselves as Asians.

When I hear things like that a shiver runs down my spine. I know I have learnt something incredibly important and something I’m going to have to think about for days and days and weeks. And this book is over-flowing with exactly that kind of idea. The sort of thing that makes you go – shit, who’d have thought?

I mean, which other book have you read lately that asks a MIT student if he would be willing to have sex with a sheep while he is masturbating to images of naked women displayed on a Mac laptop covered in Glad Wrap? Actually, don’t answer that.

The stuff in this book about stealing and its relationship to money is so interesting I can only just stop myself not telling you about it. We used to have a President of the Liberal Party (don’t be confused by the name, the Liberals here are as far right as the Republicans in the US) called John Elliot who basically stole – never tested in court (but then, he was rich and politically well connected) $66 million and was released on a technicality. Yet another of our Corporate Magnates, Richard Pratt, recently was able to steal $300 million from the Australian people and only had to repay $36 million. This time his crime was tested in court, but he is still seen as some sort of corporate hero here, rather than the thief that he is. How is this possible? Well, this book will help you understand and perhaps even help you see what we can do about these abominations.

I loved this book. It is a romp and the guy telling the stories is just the nicest person to be around while he chats away to you. Okay, sometimes I got a little annoyed with the “You’ll never guess what happened” – style – but this was such a minor criticism I feel petty bringing it up.

A large part of what I do in life involves negotiating stuff – actually, that is also true of you too, it is just that the negotiations I’m involved in are more up front than the ones you probably do day by day. As much as I don’t like to admit this, this book taught me things about negotiating that I ought to have known before. Not since Getting to Yes have I read a book quite as worthwhile or one that made me re-think stuff I do in quite the same way. I hope to be able to say in six months time that I’m still considering the implications of some of the ideas in this book – if I’m not, then more is the pity for me.

You’ve been told. What the hell are you waiting for?

Oh, except you Tina – you are the only person in the world I wouldn’t recommend buy this book. When was your birthday again?
Profile Image for Ahmad Sharabiani.
Ahmad Sharabiani
9,563 reviews487 followers
April 26, 2022
Predictably irrational : The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions is a 2008 book by Dan Ariely, in which he challenges readers' assumptions about making decisions based on rational thought.

Ariely explains, "My goal, by the end of this book, is to help you fundamentally rethink what makes you and the people around you tick. I hope to lead you there by presenting a wide range of scientific experiments, findings, and anecdotes that are in many cases quite amusing. Once you see how systematic certain mistakes are—how we repeat them again and again—I think you will begin to learn how to avoid some of them".

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز نوزدهم ماه آوریل سال2015میلادی

عنوان: نابخردی‌های پیش‌ بینی‌ پذیر: نیروهای پنهانی که به تصمیمات ما شکل می‌دهند؛ نویسنده: دن آرییلی؛ مترجم: رامین رامبد؛ تهران، نشر مازیار، سال1393؛ در343ص؛ شابک9786006043111؛ موضوع: جنبه های روانشناسی اقتصاد - اندیشه - رفتار مصرف کننده - از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده21م

درباره نیروهای پنهانی که بر ما اثر می‌گذارند و خواسته هایمان را شکل می‌دهند؛ «آرییلی» باور دارد آدمی درگیر کارها و خواسته هایی است که از خردمندی به دور هستند، و گاهی از ایده‌آل فرسنگ‌ها فاصله دارند؛ او به گفتار خودش سال‌ها کوشیده، که اشتباهات نابخردانه، بی‌معنی، عجیب، بامزه، و گاهی خطرناکی را که همگی ما انجام می‌دهیم درک کند، به این امید که با فهمیدن عادت‌های عجیب نابخردانه‌، بتوانیم برای تصمیم‌گیری‌های بهتر، جلوی خودمان را بگیریم
آریلی در این کتاب سفری دارند به تمامی رفتارهای نامعقولی که انسان‌ها در شرایط گوناگون از خود بروز می‌دهند، مبحثی که آریلی نامش را اقتصاد رفتاری یا قضاوت و تصمیم‌گری نامیده است؛ اقتصاد رفتاری حوزه‌ ای به نسبت تازه است و به هر دو جنبه ی روانشناسی و اقتصاد می‌پردازد، او در این کتاب پس از شرح دادن اقتصاد رفتاری، در هر فصل بر پایه آزمایش‌هایی که سال‌ها انجام داده، به تشریح رفتارهای نابخردانه انسان در عرصه‌ های گوناگون اقتصادی، اجتماعی و فرهنگی پرداخته است

نقل از متن: (چرا سردرد ما پس از خوردن آسپرین یک سنتی باقی میماند، ولی بعد از خوردن آسپرین پنجاه سنتی از بین میرود؟ چرا وقتی معده مان دیگر جا ندارد، باز هم سراغ بوفه ی مجانی میرویم؟ چرا بابت یک فنجان قهوه مبلغ4.15دلار میدهیم در حالی که تا همین چند سال پیش، بابت آن کمتر از یک دلار، میپرداختیم؟)؛ پایان نقل

نقل دیگر: (چرا نمی‌توانیم خودمان را واداریم که آنچه را که می‌خواهیم انجا�� دهیم، انجام دهیم؟ در صحنهٔ زندگی آمریکایی، که آکنده است از خانه‌های بزرگ، خودروهای بزرگ، تلویزیون پلاسمای صفحه بزرگ، پدیدهٔ بزرگ دیگری هم وارد شده است: بزرگ‌ترین کاهش در نرخ پس‌انداز شخصی از دوران رکود بزرگ؛ بیست و پنج سال به عقب برگردید، و ببینید که نرخ‌های دو رقمی پس‌انداز چیزی عادی بودند؛ تا همین اواخر در سال1994میلادی نرخ پس‌انداز تقریبا پنج درصد بود، ولی در سال2006میلادی نرخ پس‌انداز به زیر صفر ــ تا منفی یک درصد ــ فرو افتاده بود؛ آمریکایی‌ها نه تنها پس‌انداز نمی‌کردند، که بیش از درآمدشان هزینه می‌کردند؛ وضع اروپایی‌ها به مراتب بهتر است ــ آنان میانگین بیست درصد پس‌انداز دارند؛ نرخ ژاپن بیست و پنج درصد است؛ از آنِ چین پنجاه درصد است؛ پس چرا آمریکا چنین است؟
می‌اندیشم که یک پاسخ آن است که آمریکایی‌ها به مصرف‌گرایی بی‌حساب و کتاب معتاد شده‌اند؛ مثلاً به منزلی سر بزنید که پیش از ساخته شدن این همه چیزی که داریم، ساخته شده باشد، و نگاهی به اندازهٔ کمدهای آن بیندازید؛ برای نمونه خانهٔ ما در کمبریج ماساچوست ساخت سال1890میلادی است و اصلاً هیچ کمدی ندارد؛ خانه‌های دهه ی1940میلادی دارای کمدهایی‌اند که آنقدر بزرگ هستند که بشود در آن‌ها ایستاد؛ کمدهای دهه ی1970میلادی اندکی بزرگ‌ترند؛ شاید عمق کافی برای جا دادن یک خوراک پز، یک جعبه از نوارهای هشت تِرَکی، و چند دست لباس دیسکو؛ اما کمدهای امروز از نسل دیگری هستند؛ «کمد راهرویی» به این معناست که شما تقریبا می‌توانید در آن چند گامی بردارید؛ این کمدها هر اندازه که عمیق هم باشند آمریکایی‌ها راه‌هایی را برای پر کردن آن‌ها تا خرخره پیدا می‌کنند
پاسخ دیگر ــ نیمهٔ دیگر مسئله ــ عبارت است از انفجار اخیر در اعتبار مشتری؛ امروزه یک خانواده ی متوسط آمریکایی دارای شش کارت اعتباری است «تنها در سال2005میلادی، آمریکایی‌ها شش میلیارد درخواست نامه برای کارت‌های اعتباری دریافت کرده‌اند»؛ به طرز هراس‌آوری بدهی میانگین هر خانواده ناشی از این کارت‌ها در حدود نه هزار دلار است؛ هفت تا از ده خانوار برای پوشش دادن هزینه‌های اصلی زندگی، مانند خوراک، لوازم منزل، و پوشاک، با کارت‌های اعتباری قرض می‌گیرند)؛ پایان

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 25/03/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 05/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
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Riku Sayuj
658 reviews7,417 followers
January 16, 2014
Written in the tried-and-tested and bestselling tradition of the Malcolm Gladwell books and the Frekonomics clones, Dan Ariely's book too is an entertaining and counter-intuitive look at the world around us.

While I am getting more and more inured to this way of analysis of behavioral economics and physchology, these kinds of books are still hard to resist - that is because they do, no matter if they have now become an industry doling out similiar books by the dozens, still stretch our perspectives about the things we normally take for granted or think unworthy of a second thought. In that sense then, this book was "unputdownable" and "highly instructive".

One of my favorite passages from the book is as follows -

"I suspect that one answer lies in the realm of social norms. As we learned in our experiments, cash will take you only so far—social norms are the forces that can make a difference in the long run. Instead of focusing the attention of the teachers, parents, and kids on test scores, salaries, and competitions, it might be better to instill in all of us a sense of purpose, mission, and pride in education. To do this we certainly can't take the path of market norms. The Beatles proclaimed some time ago that you "Can't Buy Me Love" and this also applies to the love of learning—you can't buy it; and if you try, you might chase it away.

So how can we improve the educational system? We should probably first rethink school curricula, and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (elimination of poverty and crime, elevation of human rights, etc.), technological goals (boosting energy conservation, space exploration, nanotechnology, etc.), and medical goals (cures for cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) that we care about as a society. This way the students, teachers, and parents might see the larger point in education and become more enthusiastic and motivated about it.

We should also work hard on making education a goal in itself, and stop confusing the number of hours students spend in school with the quality of the education they get. Kids can get excited about many things (baseball, for example), and it is our challenge as a society to make them want to know as much about Nobel laureates as they now know about baseball players. I am not suggesting that igniting a social passion for education is simple; but if we succeed in doing so, the value could be immense."


This is in the same wavelength as some of my thoughts on education -

The point is not to have a vocation oriented educational system, but rather to have a Goal-Oriented one...

I think that the abstractness in what the students want to achieve is a problem arising directly from an abstract education.

A system which promotes and encourages students to fix goals in life early and then helps them in moving towards it and rewards them for moving towards it is my vision of Utopia in Education :) -

There will not be specific courses and subjects being taught in schools and universities but there will be Goal-oriented teams formed with advisors for them and they work together to learn, understand and develop themselves in any field or knowledge that is required to fulfill their stated goals...


I am hoping to convert this idea on education into a short story or incorporate it into my ongoing novel. So the book helped me crystallize that thought.

Sorry for the tangent. Getting back to the book, one more caveat - the author loses the plot a bit in the middle chapters. The beginning chapters about relativity and the power of zero were amusing and fun and the last two chapters on honesty is amazing, but the chapters in between was a bit of a drag.

Despite my mocking tone and slightly negative review, I will hurry to say that it is a very good purchase for anyone who enjoyed Gladwell's books or others of that genre, and also for marketeers and businessmen and maybe even for policy makers.

Despite sugar coating the book with the requirements of this genre/industry, Dan does raise some poignant questions about human nature and consumer behavior that is worth pondering over. In the final analysis then, I enjoyed the book and will read it again, and hence, four stars.
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Always Pouting
576 reviews938 followers
April 28, 2017
Honestly all the business books that talk about psychological research or behavioral economics talk about the same things. I haven't even read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman but all these books literally rehash it again and again so I probably wouldn't even get anything out of reading it now. That said this one's much better written than most of the other books I've read and so if you haven't read anything else about behavioral economics or that way we make decisions this is a good choice. If you have read other books on those things though I'd skip this one because it doesn't add anything new.



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Ryan
184 reviews29 followers
April 2, 2008
As a social psychologist, I have been trained to scoff at all "behavioral economists" because they often claim to have recently discovered that individuals do not always behave "rationally". Furthermore, they seem to brilliantly deduce that the only way to accurately predict how humans actually behave is to test behavior/decision making empirically. Of course, social psychologists have been doing this for over half a century without much public fanfare or guest spots on "MSNBC" or "CNN" every time people want to know how consumers make decisions.

With this clear bias of mine in mind, this isn't a bad book. Ariely at least gives full credit to Tversky and Kahneman's influence on his work (both psychologists), and he describes his experiments in clear, easy-to-understand language for the non-scientist reader. The big "however" with this book is Ariely's tendency to extrapolate beyond the results of his studies with recommendations concerning public policy and personal solutions for individuals. Not that his advice is necessarily wrong, but it should always be made clear where the data stop and the personal advice begins. I would recommend this book to my non-social psychologist friends.

My notes and quotes:

Ariely is a behavioral economist from Israel. Much of his work is closely related to Tversky and Kanneman’s work, although he has taken it in many new directions, but it is usually related to consumer behavior in some way.

*** He describes how money is often the most expensive way to motivate people. Instead, he suggests using social norms to do so. But he also warns the rules are different when you enter social norms into a relationship as opposed to market norms. The same rules that you use in relationships apply rather than the financial assessment of how much certain behaviors are worth. So if a business tries to develop social norms to increase productivity, they can’t all of a sudden introduce market norms without expecting a decrease in loyalty, etc.

*** He spends some time talking about the influence of arousal on decision making, or specifically how we believe we will make a particular decision when in cold, rational states than we end up making when we are highly aroused. His specific studies have examined sexual decision making and how people are more than twice as likely to rate their likelihood of engaging in various sexual behaviors as high when they are aroused vs. when they are not. This is highly relevant to things like abstinence training programs and even safe sex programs. The best prevention is to prevent the high level of arousal or the opportunity in the first place, but if arousal does occur to make sure people are trained to have what they need available “just in case”. The same principles apply for the faulty predictions of how we would behave under any emotional or motivational state, such as hunger. Another example is pregnant women not wanting to use pain medication during birth. They make the decision beforehand, but often change their mind once the pain begins because they cannot predict how they will feel during that state. One technique he offers to test this is to have a woman hold her hand into a bucket of ice for two minutes while practicing her breathing. If she is able to handle it without trouble she might be able to handle childbirth more reasonably.

*** His next section concerns procrastination and various methods of dealing with it. He divided his class into three sections, one where they got to pick their own deadlines, but once they were chosen they were firm; one where the deadlines were firmly established by the instructor; and one where there were no deadlines, they just had to submit their papers by the end of the quarter. The forced deadlines condition did best, the ones who chose their own deadlines did second, and the no deadlines condition performed the worst on the paper. He suggests the development of more external controls that we can select to prevent us from having to face temptation (to procrastinate, to spend, etc.) in the first place. By setting up our own deadlines/goals that are set in stone, we can head off our self regulation tendencies and just follow the designated structure.

*** His next section relates to when and why people cheat. He found that for many tasks where people are unsupervised, they fail to cheat as much as they possibly can, even when no one will find out, but they almost always cheat a little. This is because in small circumstances like that people don’t really consider what they are doing as wrong. In other words, small infractions don’t typically bring to mind codes of conduct we have available for moral decisions. Instead they just sweep the transgression under the rug without thinking about it. But if people were reminded of a moral code (like the 10 commandments) they wouldn’t cheat at all. The key is to make morality accessible so that the decision will be framed in moral terms. He also suggests oaths and guilds might make ethics in business more likely because people would frame their decisions more on the code of conduct of their organization/profession instead of not really thinking about it.

*** He continues on with his cheating work, but extends it to the difference between cash and non-cash currencies. When people are playing a game for cash they are much more likely to tell the truth about how much they earned (because the cash is a concrete reminder of how important the decision is) compared to when they play the game for tokens or credit of some kind. The problem is that people think there decisions are always made based on the same moral code regardless of the form of money they use. But in reality, the more concrete and meaningful a currency is, the more likely we are to frame our decisions in terms of market norms, and moral judgment. Some of the examples for non-monetary transactions are wardrobing or returning clothes after wearing them once; expense reports; taxes; insurance overestimations; or stealing anything that isn’t directly related to cash in general.

*** He ends his book with a website for his book (www.predictablyirrational.com), and mentions that you can sign up for one of his studies from the site.
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carol.
1,683 reviews9,264 followers
December 22, 2013
Yet another book I'm recommending to Goodreads staff. I will write up a long review when it's done, but I think this is worth chewing on:

According to the author of Predictably Irrational, we live simultaneous in the world of social norms and the world of market norms. Social norms are the exchanges and requests we make as part of personal connections. Market norms are the dollar-defined exchanges of dollars, wages, rents, prices. Here's where it gets interesting:


"In the lasts few decades, companies have tried to market themselves as social companions--that is, they'd like us to think that they and we are family, or at least are friends that live on the same cul-de-sac. "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" is one familiar slogan...

Whoever started the movement to treat customers socially had a great idea. If customers and a company are family, then the company gets several benefits. Loyalty is paramount. Minor infractions--screwing up your bill and even imposing a modest hike in your insurance rates--are accommodated. Relationships of course have ups and downs, but overall they're a pretty good thing.

But here's what I find strange: although companies have poured billions of dollars into marketing and advertising to create social relationships--or at least an impression of social relationships--they don't seem to understand the nature of the social relationship, and in particular, it's risks.

For example, what happens when a customer's check bounces? If the relationship is based on market norms, the bank charges a fee and the customer shakes it off. Business is business... In a social relationship, however, a hefty late fee--rather than a friendly call from the manager or an automatic fee waver--is not only a relationship-killer; it's a stab in the back. Consumers will take personal offense. They'll leave the bank angry and spend hours complaining to their friends about this awful bank. After all, this was a relationship framed as a social exchange."



No parallels to Goodreads here. Say you have a site that framed itself in social terms. Then when you start applying business decisions to the social sphere, you get surprised that those docile consumers who devoted hours and years to database building (for social rewards) get pissed off and leave to a new site. No parallels at all.

Full review and analysis at:
http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/1...
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David
865 reviews1,554 followers
March 24, 2008
All classic economic theories are based on the assumption that consumers behave rationally, despite a considerable body of evidence to the contrary. It is only in the last 25 years that economists have begun to investigate the irrational side of consumer behavior. This field of investigation, which started with the pioneering work of Tversky and Kahneman, is usually referred to as behavioral economics.

Dan Ariely's book, "Predictably Irrational", offers a clear and comprehensive overview of this fascinating subject. If you are the kind of person (like me) who can't imagine using the words 'fascinating' and 'economics' in the same sentence, don't worry, the primary focus of the book is human behavior and its peculiarities, rather than economic theory. In particular, the author is concerned with elucidating how and why people continue to engage in behavior patterns that are detrimental in the long term.

In thirteen well-written chapters, Ariely considers such topics as:

• The effect of our need for a reference point before we can judge the value of something, and how clever marketers can exploit this
• How we can become trapped by our own behavior - the importance of first decisions
• How the prospect of getting something free can override reason and logic (is it really smart to wait for free-entrance night at the museum?)
• The effect of social norms (why you are more likely to agree to help your local charity by working for nothing, than for a quarter of your normal professional rate)
• The influence of arousal (we behave irrationally in the throes of passion - what you can do about it)
• The problems of procrastination and self-control
• Our tendency to place too much value on what we already own
• The destructive consequences of people's tendency to want to keep as many options open for as long as possible
• How our expectations of something can actually influence our ability to enjoy it
• The power of price (response to a $2.50 placebo is better than that to a 10c placebo)
• In what situations are people particularly likely to behave dishonestly? How can the triggers for dishonest behavior be disarmed?

The book is based primarily on work that Ariely has done with colleagues at M.I.T. and elsewhere. Two features make the book exceptional, in my opinion:

The ability of Ariely and colleagues to devise really neat experiments to test their hypotheses. All of the conclusions in the book are convincingly supported by often remarkably clever experiments.
Ariely does an extraordinary job of making his material interesting and accessible to a general audience. The book was a joy to read.

I highly recommend "Predictably Irrational".
Verycleanteeth
11 reviews4 followers
May 6, 2011

Ch1:
Explores the ability of a decoy option to determine outcomes.
(The economist subscription, travel to rome or france w/free breakfast)

Ch2:
Our first experience becomes our anchor point that future instances are pegged to and rebound towards like a rubber band.

Anchor points are hard to change, but new anchor points can be created wholecloth by giving people a new experience (starbucks vs. dunkin donuts)

Ch3:
The power of FREE! to disguise the actual cost we pay. The difference between 0 and 1 is just as large as the gap between 9 and 10, but it feels much more significant. We might drive out of our way to get a $15 meal for free, but we won't make that same drive to save $15 on a $500 coat.

Ch4:
Social norms vs. Market norms. People will do a good job for free, or for a good salary, but not for a lousy salary. Living a life based on social norms can be more fulfilling.

Ch5: The influence of arousal. When we are calm and rational we fail to be capable of predicting how we will act when we are instead hot and emotional. Dr. Jekyll may imagine when the time comes he will be able to control his Mr. Hyde, but perhaps it would be better to plan ahead for the irrational emotional state (having a condom on hand for instance).

Ch6: Procrastination & Self Control. Use the power of precommitment to reign in your future self. In a classroom setting students do better when given explicit due dates for their assignments (or even when they choose them themselves) than if they can put it all off to the end of the semester.

Ch7: The high price of ownership. We value things more once we own them than before. This is related to our intrinsic loss aversion.

ex: Final Four ticket holders valued their tickets in the thousands, while potential buyers only considered paying $100-$200, even though they were pulled fromt the same original pull.

This idea of ownership and loss aversion also applies to ideas. Once we learn a particular "fact" about economics, for example, we are not prone to let go of it even if it is shown to be wrong.

Ch8: Keeping Doors Open

If we have too many options available, we may delay or be inactive which can lead to greater losses than if we had just chosen the "weaker" of our options. The differences between our choices are often negligible and we don't take into account the cost of not deciding. It is vital to begin shutting doors when we are overwhelmed with choice.

Ch9: The effect of expectations

So much of what we like or dislike is based on preconceived notions. If we want something mundane to taste exciting, throw an "exotic" ingredient into the description. Our expectations based on previous life experience color pretty much everything we come into contact with.

(Beer with vinegar in it: If you're told ahead of time, it was not liked at all. If told after, it was enjoyed much more.
Asian women do better on math tests if they are primed with questions about their race than if primed with questions about their gender
)

Ch10: The Power of Price

Higher priced pain medication works better than cheap pain medication. The effect goes beyond pain medication as well.

Also, more things should be placebo tested.

CH11: The Context of our Character pt1

People will cheat a little when given the chance. The amount they cheat will not necessarily increase as the chance of getting caught decreases. If people are reminded of the idea of honesty through and ethics code or something before a test they do not cheat.

CH12: The Context of our Character pt2

We adhere to a certain level of honesty when it comes to cash. But nonmonetary abstractions can make us dishonest cheats. We may not take $1 sitting on top of someone's desk, but many will take one of their cokes from the breakroom fridge with few qualms. We just view money differently.

This has huge implications when you think of how business' use nonmonetary abstractions (think frequent flyer miles and the crazy fiscal abstractions on wall street)

CH13: Beer and Free lunches

behavioral economics takes into account human irrationality while standard economics assumes humans maximize assumes people are rational actors maximizing their happiness and costs in accordance with their preferences.

The irrationalities illustrated in this book don't mean we are stupid or weak minded. It's like a visual puzzle. You may KNOW that image A is the same size as image B, but you can't deny image B LOOKS bigger.

We should take irrationalities into account and PLAN for them.
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Mike
520 reviews128 followers
June 19, 2020
Oh God, what shit. Where to begin?

The simplest start is to take issue with the premise, which is simply that the model of a 'rational actor' as defined in classical economics is ridiculous for two reasons: one because of how irrational we are naturally, but also that the degree of our irrationality is so pervasive as to be testable and demonstrable in a way that studies that prove it are easily replicated. This is good. Data replication is crucial. It's a shame that this stubborn notion of a 'rational actor' hasn't been obliterated in even current debate among economics experts, NYT op/ed hacks, and sweat-smeared pundits, but it still doesn't help Dan Ariely's trainwreck from being an overblown straw-man argument against an obvious case. Of course a rudimentary concept such as the rational actor being found along two hypothetical straight lines doesn't encompass human experience. If you're going to make this obvious point, do it in a way that's convincing with data from which it is safe to extrapolate. Dan Ariely fails on these accounts and more.

Oddly, let's start with the more: his total ineptitude for obvious answers that lie within the sociological disciplines. He seems baffled by how white-collar crime is seen as sterile and ineffectual, though more catastrophic, than violent, petty robbery or vandalism against property. Why is this, he says? He talks about how the process of mediation - how having proxies around money stand in for money - changes how we perceive cheating or theft. This misses the point. People still see vandalism and petty theft - of property, not money itself, mind you - as more dreadful or lowly, and worthy of incarceration, than the greed that devastated a global economy. In his discussion he omits any mention of racism and classism: could it be that we condemn petty theft because it's the symptom of a subordinate class being oppressed to the point of desperation? Could it be that it's because the "war on crime" was so racially coded and abetted thanks to COPS (the show and the over-militarized killers) and distorting media imagery that the mental image of a burglar that is conjured in the public imagination is that of a young Black male? Not to mention our contempt for what we are as poor as opposed to the kind of unfettered prosperity we desire as rich. These are low-hanging fruit answers Ariely missed the boat on completely, and it's downright stupid that he missed them.

Now a brief word about his sexist bullshit. Take page 77, wherein he takes the case of a man being frustrated that he's taken a woman out to dinner with no sex in exchange. He casually mentions that after four dinners he ought to get something out of it, right? "He should have known that one can't mix social and market norms - especially in this case - without implying that the lady is a tramp. He should also have remembered the immortal words of Woody Allen: 'The most expensive sex is free sex.'" Not only is he quoting the most inappropriate mentor for sexual counsel imaginable, but look at how he misses the point of pervasive sexism here. What are the forces at play that make dinner with another woman not its own reward? Why with such flippance is it okay to make the man the one with agency here and blame his mistake on the blending of norms? Isn't it also about seeing women as more than sexual property, as perhaps a human being? For anyone remotely awake to how the patriarchy functions, it's a miserable omission and an astoundingly tone-deaf example in a book rife with them.

His example for fixing employment disillusionment on page 90 is about incorporating more social norms into workplace environments: and while I agree that health insurance coverage should be a part of the mix, he's amazed at how start-up companies are getting so much productivity out of employees (91). Yet the tide is turning: start-ups are garnering bad reputations for the burnout its staff experience, and are ridiculed for the absurd perks and ping-pong tables that they put into their offices in its wake. Nowhere in this discussion of enhancing quality of life is the mere mention of work-life balance, collective bargaining, fair and equitable pay, &c. It's about how manipulating social norms can entrap labor in a contract they may be too scared to leave. Except they're not really: it's no wonder start-ups have such high turnover.

There are glaring issues with his extrapolations from his cutesy studies, though. So many that I can't possibly list them all here. For example, Ariely concludes that students become more conscious of not being selfish maximizers when chocolates are free to take as opposed to one or two pennies to take. When they are cheap, people don't consider the supply for someone else. Yet this conclusion is then meant to show why carbon cap-and-trade policies are a bad idea. In what world can chocolate - a mostly unnecessary, inexpensive, and far-from-scarce good - as consumed by privileged college students become an indicator of international macroeconomic policy meant on saving life as we know it? Why not look at oil instead? His case is weak especially since he relies on rational economic models that he wishes to debunk in order to support his claim here: a company "might well decide, after a cost-benefit analysis, that it can go ahead and pollute a lot more" (115). It's weird for Ariely to reincorporate cost-benefit analyses as tried-and-true metrics considering how irrational those analyses might be according to his own findings, but no matter: his "better" solution is to "make pollution into an easily measurable and observable quantity and get people to pay attention to it and understand its importance" by "publically posting the pollutant amounts of different countries, states, and companies together" (116). This is demonstrably failing. The United States has "elected" a leader who believes climate change is a hoax concocted by the Chinese. The United States feels so little of the shame Ariely expects it to feel for being so obstinately non-committal to climate change resolution after climate change resolution that to imbue any sense of optimism into it feels naive beyond belief. The gargantuan body of literature confirming climate change as a phenomenon, and the cornucopia of reports verifying it, not to mention the increase of natural disasters occurring before our very eyes, has done little to get people to pay attention to it and understand its importance. This is in part because of the irrational parts of human nature that Ariely should understand well enough to know his proposal is stupid. Another part is his models are not comprehensive enough to capture the entirety of backfire effects, political dealings, propaganda manufacturing, and political tweaking. Nor does he account for the fact that his discussion of market failures - in this case, "externalities" - is a classical doctrine that better accounts for the phenomenon he's describing as a behavioral economist.

The list of disasters goes on and on: he studies only men to make a judgment about all people in the chapter "The Influence on Arousal." There's a huge fallacy in his methodology in this chapter: he asks people when not sexually aroused what they would do if aroused. Then he arouses them and asks them what they would do when sexually aroused. His conclusion? That people who are sexually aroused would be more likely to cheat, sexually assault, have sex with older women and even an animal, and therefore we are bad indicators of gauging how we'll act when we're aroused. But wait a second. In order for this to be true, Ariely would have to prove that when people are sexually aroused, they are good gauges for what they will do when they are sexually aroused. The only evidence he has presented is that these people self-reported while they were aroused that they would be more willing to perform these things. But what if people are bad at judging what they'd do when they're aroused...both while they're aroused and when not? If we're interested in measuring actual behavior when aroused, perhaps it's best to measure actual behavior when aroused, not responses to hypothetical questions while aroused. I don't understand why he would say our judgment gets more cloudy and impulsive while we are aroused, but doesn't extend that principle to say our judgment gets more cloudy and impulsive while answering surveys or doing experiments while aroused. At best he can say that people are bad judges - when not aroused - of how they'll self-report their hypothetical behavior when aroused, but that's all he's proven. He has not proven with his evidence any change in actual conduct. He makes the embarrassing example of how it's because of "the heat of passion" and its interplay with our irrational psyche that "a priest rapes a boy" (128). So much for the long-established notion that rape is about power, power, power. He would rather teach adolescents to say no before any arousal or temptation takes hold than challenge the assumption that teenagers should avoid sex, which is hypocritical of him since later in the book he asks us why we don't model our policies after how people actually behave rather than how they should (317). If we modeled our policies after how teenagers actually behaved when dealt abstinence-only or anti-coveting education, well, we'd end up in the disaster we're in. Good thing we're not following Dan Ariely's advice on one instance, and following his advice about how to model policies based on actual behavior in another. Which Dan Ariely do I like or dislike?

Also how did he get a study where he painfully shocks people past an institutional review board? The answer is he probably didn't, and he's fabricating a study. I hope this does not bear repeating.

It doesn't help that he's a creep that lets a student confide in him to somewhat revolting effect (186) or that his protocols for better behavior address only those with comfortable incomes at prestigious universities (no way to split those bills the way you want, Dan, if you're broke and don't go out with the same people to the same fancy restaurant every week). He quotes Skinner and Freud, both of whom have been widely debunked. His "vanishing doors" example (194-195) eludes the more viable concept of choice paralysis, as well as totally misses the point that the situation presented is no surrogate for real life. Any vanishing door will have variable benefits to it in real life, therefore the study is a chronicle of perfectly rational risk aversion, not irrationality. Every study in here is a failure in what happens when we try to assess human behavior with a limited demographic in a limited space without any of the appropriate context that human life functions within.

But wait, there's more! Ariely somehow believes that patients' self-assessments of their own pain should be taken at face value (227) even though pain is notoriously difficult to capture, empathize with, and measure across people. Nor is there any mention of how human beings might not be fully honest about telling medical professionals how successful treatment was, in part because they may be shy about telling the professional the treatment failed, they may want to believe so much that they feel better that they say so in a survey to try to convince themselves, that they say they're fine out of sheer denial, or any other innumerable complexities that go into why a person might not be fully honest when they disclose they feel better to a professional (oh, let's not forget the power dynamic often enshrined within that exchange) that should be controlled for or accounted for beyond being swept into a "placebo effect" umbrella. The book is so reductive it's nauseating. And when it's not making outlandish and uninformed claims like "Before recent times, almost all medicines were placebos" (229) it's just repetitive dreck. I guess he didn't know that some "non-recent times" medicines worked because, oh let's see, willow bark actually has aspirin in it, for fucking example.

I'm not even close to done with how much garbage there is in this book. Just ugh. Fucking ugh.
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Caroline
542 reviews685 followers
February 21, 2016
This is a wonderfully interesting and amusing book. Every time I had a few spare minutes, I would leap back into it with gusto. Some of the things I read I had already seen elsewhere - but much was new to me. The author is described as a behavioural economist.....and I think this book would interest anyone who is interested in psychology.

This book is tops. There are enough reviews here singing its praises already. I shall simply end with some notes for my own record, and links to some more of Ariely's work (the TED talks are fantastic!)

-----------------------------

Dan Ariely's website. (Letters to him from the public and his responses.... He seems to be a sort of agony aunt for The Wall Street Journal.)
http://danariely.com/

Dan Ariely's TED talks...

Are we in control of our decisions?
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_...

What makes us feel good about our work?
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_...

Our buggy moral code
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_...

Beware Conflicts of interest
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_...

How equal do we want the world to be? You'd be surprised...
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_...

Predictably Irrational: Basic human motivations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfcro...

A great interview with Dan for Valentine's Day 2015, about dating & relationships.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS8R2...

A series of interviews/podcasts done by Dan Ariely for Duke University, under the umbrella title "Arming the Donkeys"
http://danariely.com/tag/arming-the-d...

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Ayse_
155 reviews82 followers
July 22, 2018
What an interesting book. It complemented my last reading ~ Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman ~ in some ways. The examples in the book suggests that `The Neo Cortex` is such a funny dude that tricks us into thinking that we are making logical decision, that we are rational beings. In the meanwhile the other machinery that actually makes and executes the decision is pulling our strings. As stated in the book, we are a true Jeckll and Hyde dilemma. Very funny and the joke is on us.
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Amir Tesla
161 reviews745 followers
October 2, 2017
توي يه مبحث از يه جايي به بعد محتواي كتابا تقريبا تكراري مي شن. با اين حال خوش مزه بود.
ريويو هم اگه زمان اجازه بده به زودي.
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Alison
113 reviews3 followers
March 26, 2009
reads like an extended, slightly dumbed down USA today article.
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Kathrynn
1,181 reviews
July 9, 2009
If I had to describe Predictably Irrational using two words they would be "thought provoking." The author is a professor who was injured in an explosion in Israel. He suffered severe burns and 5 years of therapy. He used this "down time" to ponder the why's and how come's of life. Using many experiments he (and others) tested the moral aptitude and other aspects of human behavior.

Each chapter has several experiments that pertain to a topic.

Chapter 1: The Truth about Relativity: Why Everything is Relative--Even When It Shouldn't Be

The author uses an example of shopping for a house in another part of the United States. He says, people accustomed to their own housing market set a mental "anchor" and expect to pay a similar price for a home elsewhere. Relativity. However, if a person were to rent a home in their new location, they--eventually--adapt to the higher prices and will not be so sticker shocked.

Chapter 2: The Fallacy of Supply and Demand: Why the Price of Pearls--and Everything Else--Is Up in the Air

Interesting, but true. The author uses black pearls as an example. When black pearls first came out businesses couldn't sell them. Had to market them by placing them in fine jewelry stores surrounded by diamonds and emeralds, place a high price on them, then people wanted them. He calls this "arbitrary coherence." Talked about how initial prices are arbitrary and can be influenced. So true!

I thought it was interesting the way the author talked about stores who want to sell a certain, say t.v. It may not be the best that they have, but that is their target sell. They use three t.v.s, one very expensive, one middle of the road and one fairly inexpensive to test our mettle. Most will choose the middle of the road and that was the overall goal of the store.

Chapter 3: The Cost of Zero Cost: Why We Often Pay Too Much When We Pay Nothing

Interesting. We all tend to have an idea of how much we should earn or how much a particular service should cost. The author calls this an "anchor." There was a master martial art instructor that gave free lessons. When the students asked to pay him, he told them he did it for free because they could not afford him if he charged.

Another example was AARP asked a group of lawyers if they would be willing to provide legal services to some of their elderly members for $30 p/hour in lieu of their usual rate of $200 p/hour. The lawyers said, no. But when they were asked if they would do this service for free, they said yes.

Why? Because they had it set in their minds what they were worth. Anchor.

Chapter 4: The Cost of Social Norms: Why We Are Happy to Do Things, but Not When We are Paid to Do Them

This chapter dealt with social norms and market norms and what happens when they collide. An example was a large family Thanksgiving dinner and a guest decided to pay the hostess $300 for the meal, she was offended. Why? Because he used a market norm ($) to pay for a social norm. When a bottle of wine would have been considered very gracious.

Another example was if you ask a friend to help you move. They do it for free. But if you have the friend help you alongside a moving company that you are paying. That's a no-no.

Chapter 5: The Influence of Arousal: Why Hot Is Much Hotter Than We Realize

Well, I'm going to sum this up by saying that men (they didn't use women because men could become aroused faster) that were masturbating were more likely to accept or do things (sexually) that they wouldn't consider in a calm(er) state of mind. Examples were: wearing condom, three somes, rape, etc.

Little note that the author made a good point about the abstinence vs protection debate. Teens and people WILL not think clearly in a heightened state and thus do things they would not have done otherwise.

Chapter 6: The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control

He taught classes and each class he told the students they had to submit 4 papers. One class got to decided their own due dates. They could select the last day of class, because that's when he would start grading them. They selected incremental dates. Another class he told to turn in 4 papers by the last day of class. They did the worst. Obvious they waited until the end to pull off those papers.

Showed that we need to set limits to achieve goals. Whether dieting, saving, etc.

Chapter 7: The High Price of Ownership: Why We Overvalue What We Have

Self-Explanatory

Chapter 8: Keeping Doors Open: Why Options Distract Us from Our Main Objective

Yikes! People hanging on to old loves, just in case, but dating new people. Several experiments that showed how we like to keep our options open in all aspects of our lives.

Chapter 9: The Effect of Expectations: Why the Mind Gets What It Expects

Talks about how previously held impressions can cloud our point of view. Did not care for the football analogy! We will pay more for the same coffee if served in a nice atmosphere.

Interesting that he mentions how advertising a product can build a reputation for the product; thus, we are expected to like it better.
I disagree. Books come to mind first. Movies second. Many times, movies the critics ripped apart, I enjoyed.

Chapter 10: The Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can't

We expect the name brand product to work better than generic or store brand.

Chapter 11: The Context of Our Character: Why We Are Dishonest, and What We Can Do About It

Oaths of office from white collar professions and how they have degraded and why. Congress, lobbying, doctors accepting "incentives" to prescribe drugs. Interesting.

Chapter 12: The Context of Our Character (part 2): Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest

We tend to be willing to steal a pen from our place of employment, but not money from the petty cash to go buy a pen. Talked about the recent "police blotter" newspapers with business scandals.

Chapter 13: Beer and Free Lunches: What Is Behavioral Economics, and Where Are the Free Lunches?

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Felt the author spent too much time explaining in too much detail his experiments, though. Could have been summed up faster. He tended the ramble. Sorry. However, the ideas presented were interesting.

Did not agree with the author's idea to help us curb our spending habits, though. He suggests we agree to spend x amount on certain things p/month and when the debit/credit card shows that x amount is exceeded there would be consequences. No wonder the bank never called him back.

Liked his idea to help with our health care. He felt doctors should provide incentives to health prevention. For instance, have a patient submit a $100 or $200 deposit for a cholesterol screening that they get back when they make the appointment. Interesting because prevention can be a major key in cutting health costs.
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Ksenya
112 reviews94 followers
July 16, 2018
Захоплива мандрівка у світ поведінкової економіки. Маю підозру, що ті, хто "в темі", аж так багато нового з книжки не дізнаються. Проте, як для мене, людини далекої від економіки, дуже було цікаво. Ця книжка починається із особистої історії автора, яка й надихнула його провести десятки (чи сотні?) е��спериментів. Ден Аріелі займається тим, що досліджує ірраціональні дії людей. Його головна думка - навіть ірраціональне можна вивчити і зробити його передбачуваним. А тим самим - уникнути багатьох ірраціональних і шкідливих для нас самих рішень. Це книжка про те, як ми обираємо - товари в магазині та пиво у барі, чи впливає на нас вибір друзів, шалені знижки та акційні пропозиції, збудження, наша тотальна прокрастинація і тд. У тому числі - чи потрібен нам тотальний контроль для дедлайнів, чи ми здатні самі себе контолювати. Книжку весело і легко читати завдяки гумору Аріелі. Пригодиться, як на мене, усім, хто працює у сфері маркетингу, та прагне жити раціонально, попри те, що більшість наших виборів потрапляють у потік ірраціональності.
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Elyse✨
466 reviews89 followers
July 8, 2023
I know I'm an irrational person but I didn't realize all humans are. The author used controlled experiments to come up with this conclusion. The most surprising to me was one experiment showing humans are slightly dishonest if they know they won't be caught. At least MIT and Harvard students can be a bit dishonest (and students from other prestigious colleges) because those are the people he used in most of his studies. An amusing twist is when he had the subjects read the ten commandments before the experiment and how it effected the results. Humans never fail to amaze me.
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Otis Chandler
407 reviews115k followers
April 19, 2021
Absolutely loved this book and all the examples it gives of how we think we are making rational decisions, when in fact we aren't. The book concludes by saying many of these irrational decisions we make are entirely predictable (thus the title of the book), and thus we should as a society do better to factor them in. I would have loved more suggestions of how this could be done, but that was beyond the scope of the book.

This book seems to be a must for anyone studying or dealing with pricing. Which is all of us given we all buy things. For instance, the advice that "given three choices, most people will take the middle choice" is simultaneously obvious and also very useful.

"humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate value accordingly."

I loved the chapter on social norms vs market norms. Also stuff that seems obvious, but I hadn't ever put it into that mental model, and seeing it that way is very interesting. Good reminder that money isn't the best motivator, but if you go with social norms, you have to keep it entirely that way (eg Burning Man barter economy).

"we live simultaneously in two different worlds—one where social norms prevail, and the other where market norms make the rules." ... "when a social norm collides with a market norm, the social norm goes away for a long time. In other words, social relationships are not easy to reestablish."

Another gem was the study that showed that how when we are in an emotionally charged state, we make consistently worse decisions. It would be great if my smart devices (Garmon, Oura, Fitbit, Apple Watch, etc) could detect this and give me a warning somehow.

"every one of us, regardless of how “good” we are, underpredicts the effect of passion on our behavior. In every case, the participants in our experiment got it wrong. Even the most brilliant and rational person, in the heat of passion, seems to be absolutely and completely divorced from the person he thought he was."

Another interesting study compared the same coffee served in a mediocre setting with that served in a upscale setting, and found the same coffee tasted significantly better in the upscale setting. Good to remember - the entire experience matters, design matters, the little details matter.

I loved the study on food ordering, which showed "When people order food and drinks, they seem to have two goals: to order what they will enjoy most and to portray themselves in a positive light in the eyes of their friends." Thus if people order out loud, they are more likely to order different things from those before them, and if they order blindly, more likely to order the same things. This is why blind voting on hiring and anything else where groupthink is so key is important. Also, I can't wait for restaurants to have barcode ordering and checkout :)

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Darin
196 reviews2 followers
June 23, 2008
Ariely is a good writer whose book catches onto the _Freakonomics_ craze by taking a look at times when people make different decisions that typical "laissez faire" economic theories would expect. His book is a fairly easy read and does include some surprising results through social-science experimentation.

However, the text is not without its flaws. For instance, some of the breathlessly-reported "surprising" results aren't all that surprising or even controversial. For instance, the effect of a "free" item on consumer decision-making is vastly overstated as irrational. This idea is old-hat to most and doesn't make much of a point. More troubling, however, is the unstated difference between this brand of social science and pure economics, and the author states such at the end of the text: the ultimate goal of such discovery is to alter and market certain things that are "beneficial" to most people into "free lunches" which are irresistable to the average Joe.

Here is where pure economics gets it right: there is no such thing as a "free lunch", no matter what social economics claims. The buck always stops somewhere. If people are going to make "better" decisions about things, someone somewhere is going to decide what "better" is. And if someone else is deciding the terms of this "better", it no longer falls on the individual to do so.

It is true that human beings cannot always be protected from themselves. If this is true, then this is tenfold true for random human beings (usually via government nannyism) who force "better" upon all people, rational or otherwise. Ariely never tries to face this dilemna, and it weakens the conclusion of the book considerably. This is an entertaining read, and worth your time as a second or third go at _Freakonomics_-like thought, but it doesn't hold a candle to the original.
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Alireza
149 reviews31 followers
August 22, 2023
راستش این کتاب اونقدری که قبل از خوندنش انتظار داشتم، در نیومد.
شاید چون خیلی تخصصی به اقتصاد علاقه‌ای ندارم و این کتاب نابخردی‌هایی رو بیشتر بررسی میکرد که با علم اقتصاد و تاحدی روانشناسی ترکیب بود.
دو فصل اول رو خیلی دوست داشتم و ایده‌شون برام جالب بود ولی رفته رفته هرچی کتاب جلو میرفت بیشتر خسته میشدم.
کتاب مواردی رو مطرح میکنه که بعضی‌هاشون واقعا روشنگر هستن و هر شخصی تو زندگی عادی خودش ممکنه بارها اونا رو تکرار کرده باشه ولی از نحوه اثبات ایده‌هاش و انجام آزمایشاتش خیلی راضی نبودم. یعنی بعضی از اون آزمایش‌ها رو میشد باشکل‌های دیگه انجام داد و به نتایج دیگه‌ای رسید که لزوما تاییدکننده نظر نویسنده نباشن.
درضمن ترجمه به طور کلی بد نبود ولی در معادل‌سازی خیلی از واژگان تخصصی از کلماتی ثقیل و عجیب غریب استفاده کرده بود.
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LATOYA JOVENA
175 reviews29 followers
June 14, 2017
Predictably Irrational is an entertaining and enlightening read.
The most important lesson I learned from Ariely is the high cost of free. The biggest example is "free shipping." Companies only offer you free shipping to convince you to spend at least the minimum amount to get it. Something to think about the next time I shop online.
Many of Ariely's lessons on psychology were already explained to me in previous books, but that isn't a strike against him. It just shows that maybe humans aren't as difficult to figure out as we would like to think.
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Jamie Smith
511 reviews94 followers
July 15, 2021
We like to think of ourselves as rational actors who carefully evaluate our options, and make decisions based on cool, dispassionate logic. Not bloody likely, especially after we’ve had a few drinks. Just ask the author of this book, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely. We all come loaded with preconceived ideas and past experiences and can nudge ourselves, or be nudged by those wanting to manipulate us, without our ever suspecting a thing.

This book describes a number of cleverly designed experiments that reveal some unexpected facts about how we respond to the world, and it has some startling observations. Everyone knows that teenagers are worse drivers than adults, but how much worse came as a surprise to me, for instance “a recent study found that a teenager driving alone was 40 percent more likely to get into an accident than an adult. But with one other teenager in the car, the percentage was twice that—and with a third teenager along for the ride, the percentage doubled again.”

The book looks at a number of different types of situations where we often behave irrationally even though we think we are being logical and consistent. One of the more interesting ones involves setting points of reference as a means of valuing things. A friend of mine owned a picture framing business and said she was advised to have one very expensive piece of framing -- something like $100 a foot. Her previous most expensive samples were around $60 a foot, but very few people bought them. However, once she set out the $100 sample, the $60 ones seemed cheap by comparison, and she greatly increased their sales.

There are also some experiments which show that money is often the worst way to motivate people, and I have certainly found this true in my experience. Company rules limited on-the-spot awards to very nominal sums, which I always gave out with a smile to let the employee know I was in on the joke. Otherwise, they were often insulted, thinking that the company valued their time and exceptional effort at such trivial amounts. On the other hand, non-money awards were often greatly appreciated, especially time off, but also things like reserved parking spaces and permission to work from home.

It is well known that placebos often work, but in many cases they work even when the person knows they are a placebo. Also, people often report that an expensively priced placebo works better than a cheap one. Along these line once, long ago, my girlfriend asked me to pick up a bottle of Acetaminophen, and said to make sure I got the “extra strength” version. When I got to the drug store I saw that the extra strength version had 500mg of the active ingredient and the regular one 325mg, so three of the regular ones were the equivalent of two of the others, but the extra strength pills were more than twice as expensive. I did the math* and then bought the cheaper ones, then went home and explained my logic to her, but the next day she went out and bought a bottle of the 500mg version, saying that the others just didn’t seem to work as well.

Other chapters in this book cover things like who cheats and who does not, and experiments in self-discipline. Students who were given strict deadlines for assignments did better on them that students who could set their own submission schedules, and also better than students who had no schedules at all but only needed to turn in their work by the end of the semester. Knowing that you will be held accountable for work by a certain date acts as a motivator to get it done on time, while flexible deadlines simply encourage procrastination. That is a useful message for managers.

The author also reminds us that we should be very wary of any company that says they want us to be a friend and not just a customer. Some of them will make gestures in that direction, such as helpful customer service and other niceties, but you can never count on them when you need them. After every natural disaster there are stories of insurance company claims adjusters taking advantage of homeowners by offering immediate cash settlements for far less than what the insurance policy actually covers. Many people desperately need money to start getting their lives back together, so they accept the offer, and this is all legal, but what a crappy way to treat “family.” Like a good neighbor?, oh please....

My only concerns about this book are those that other reviewers have mentioned. First, the author sometimes extends specific experimental results into broad observations about society, and seemed to be pushing his conclusions too far. There was also a set of experiments with male undergraduates to show how their judgments on the attractiveness of women were affected when they were masturbating. I suppose there is some good science in there somewhere, but the ick factor of that chapter was unsettling.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and readers can learn some useful things that can help them become better decisions, but perhaps only theoretically better. If this book has shown me anything it is that many of the biases that affect decision making are entirely subconscious, so even knowing what I now know may not help me.

* for demonstration purposes, assume that both bottles contain 100 pills; the regular strength (325mg) bottle costs $3, and thus each pill is three cents, and the extra strength (500mg) bottle costs $6, or six cents a pill. Three of the regular strength pills would cost nine cents, and two of the extra strength ones twelve cents, or 33% more for essentially the same amount of active ingredient. Q.E.D.
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Greg
9 reviews3 followers
July 13, 2008
Here are just a few tidbit's I've learned:

-If you're ever going to a bar, trying to score a little bit of lovin', bring a friend who looks very similar to you - only a little uglier. That way you'll look like the ideal candidate, not just compared to your friend but to everyone else there.

-People are more likely to steal things once removed from cash than cash - ie. the Enron crew who stole millions of dollars from the retirement pensions of little old ladies, but would they ever have snatched 10 bucks from the purses of little old ladies?

-The 800 dollar bottle of wine is on the menu not because the restaurant ever expects to sell it, but because now you're going to buy the 799 dollar bottle of wine.

-Out of the goodness of my heart I will help you move into your new aptm for free. Tell me you're going to pay me to do the same thing, say 5 bucks, and I'm suddenly going to be busy that day.

-When given the slightest opportunity we will all cheat! On test I mean, not necessarily on people.

-A Tylenol pill that costs a penny is not as effective as a Tylenol pill that costs 50 cents, ceteris paribus.

-All rules, bets, and lessons learned are off when I have a hard on. Also animals and rape may look attractive to me.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Only you'll have to go to your local library to pick it up.
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Nika
372 reviews150 followers
August 12, 2018
Не дуже багато нового, але цікаво і дещо наочніше, ніж я це знала. В цілому підсумок наступний - ми ірраціональні, системно і передбачувано. З цим потрібно змиритися, але варто спробувати це налагодити, постійно рефлексуючи та відслідковуючи свої рішення. Тобто - постійна пильність, як казав А. Муді🤭
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Jamie
Author 5 books196 followers
August 1, 2008
It's only about the middle of the year, but I think Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational is a shoe-in for my favorite non-fiction book of 2008. When I was studying psychology one of my favorite topics was judgment and decision-making, which dealt in large part with the kinks in the human mind that could lead us to irrational behavior and decisions. Why are you likely to pay more for something if you are shown a large number completely unrelated to the price? Why do people who read words like "elderly," "decrepit," or "senior" tend to walk more slowly when they get up and leave the room? Why does losing a dollar cause us more pain than gaining a dollar gives us pleasure? Why are we more likely to buy a product we're not even shopping for or don't even need if we're given a free sample? And, perhaps most importantly, how do people in the know --people like advertisers, politicians, and psychology graduate students-- use these ideosycracities to subtly manipulate us?

These are the kinds of questions that Ariely, a professor at MIT, discusses under the rubric of "behavioral economics." Each chapter is dedicated to a particular concept, like the anchoring effect, priming, social norms, supply and demand, procrastination, loss avoidance, the effects of price on perception, and the like. Ariely usually chats you up a bit about the concept, then walks you through a scenario or hypothetical situation that invites you to make predictions about human behavior, then comes at you with some findings from scientific research (often experiments that he's done himself) that turns your assumptions on their little figurative ears.

Ariely's style is great --conversational, to the point, made relevant to some part of your life, and easy to follow despite navigating some tricky twists of the human psyche. And it's not just dry recitations of clinical psychology experiments --everything talked about here is ensconced in everyday life. For example, this book should win some award for describing some fascinating research on the effects of sexual arousal on decision making. Let's just say that it involved naughty pictures, experimenter issued laptops covered in protective Seran Wrap, and answering some very odd questions while in the throes of ...well, you know. I'm now more disappointed than ever that all of my extra credit in college psychology classes was never earned from anything so interesting. I just had to look at ink blots and fill out the MMPI over and over again.

Really, anyone with even an ounce of curiosity about how the human mind works --or fails to work-- within the context of every day life should find a lot of fascinating material in this book. You should definitely pick it up. And then, preferably, read it.
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Baba
3,850 reviews1,301 followers
June 5, 2020
Extremely thought provoking read, backed by oodles of research data. Ariely explodes the myth of rational thinking and how we see ourselves, backing it up with far-reaching and extensive studies. This 'revised and expanded' version also has a final chapter on the cause of the credit crunch and how behavioural science and a better look at rational economics can better safeguard, or even prevent its reoccurrence. The sort of stuff we should be teaching in our schools. 9 out of 12.
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David Rubenstein
831 reviews2,712 followers
March 15, 2010
While there is nothing truly new in this book, it is written very clearly and concisely. Unlike some other books of this genre, this book does not ramble on and on about irrelevant subject. The author makes this book a very interesting read.
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Ahmad Davari
39 reviews
August 27, 2016
همه ی ما به طرز پیش بینی پذیری نابخردانه عمل می کنیم. این کتاب به موضوعات جالبی پرداخته است. موضوعات روزمره و دم دستی که عموم ما آدم ها در آن دچار اشتباه می شویم. خواندنش را به شدت توصیه می کنم.
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