Name: Predictably Irrational
Rating: 4.150375939849624 (133 reviews)
ISBN: 9780062018205

Dan Ariely

The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Predictably Irrational

Cuts to the heart of our strange behaviour, demonstrating how irrationality often supplants rational thought and that the reason for this is embedded in the very structure of our minds.

The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions

Pierre

The tone of the book is rather pedantic. Also it sounds like the concepts are overly explained without there being a great payoff. In the end it sounded to me like scientists proving what your aunt or my grandmother always knew. Sorta.
A book that enlightened me slightly more (I read it more than 10 years ago though) was Petit traité de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens. A pity this has not been translated to english AFAIK.

Matthew Royal

Overall, this is a useful book. There's quite a bit of overlap conceptually with David Graeber's "Debt" and Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow," but this one predates them by 3 years.

Social vs market norms. Similar to David Graeber's book about Debt. Social norms shouldn't be translated into market norms, or you destroy them. This book uses them to explain relationship costs in a useful way. Men paying for dinner on a date, if complaining that he always has to pay, converts it into a market norm. This therefore turns the possible sexual relationship from social to market, implying the date can be bought, which is a social insult. I think this is why so many people on the autism spectrum sound like incels: they view social norms in relationships as a financial exchange and therefore women as manipulators of value.

This construct of Ideas of "free/gift" crossing market and social norms in weird but predictable ways is a useful analytical tool. It's easy once you get going to classify every interaction in one of these 2 categories, and consider what would happen if it crossed into the other norm. Much more fruitful than Graeber's formulation.

 People are willing to work for free, and they're willing to work for money, but if you offer them a small amount of money, they'll walk away.
Telling someone how much a gift costs puts it back into the market mode, and could be perceived as tasteless or offensive.

One of the other great ideas he has is bundling healthcare tests and common procedures like immunizations into regular, predictably priced service events, like with an auto dealership. However, if higher prices for drugs and healthcare are as positively correlated with satisfaction and pain relief as he says, then the US healthcare system must be the most satisfying one in the world. Since it is clearly not, this placebo effect is overstated.

Mati Goldberg

I read the book after watching Prof. Ariely and Prof. Kariv's debate in my college. Very interesting and makes you think about the daily decisions you take.

Nelson Zagalo

Dan Ariely is one of the most known academics in the domain of Behavioral Economics thanks to his TED talks, and also in part to his life story. In "Predictably Irrational" he presents a choice of psychological experiments conducted by himself and his colleagues from the Ivy League and build his case from them. Ariely follows in the line of Gladwell when it comes to write and communicate, being cheerful and engaging, even if he demonstrates more profound knowledge of the subjects than him. However the trap behind this kind of writing is that in the end we feel more like we've read a book of recipes, or even a self-help book, instead of a structured, aligned and comprehensive argument. 

Ariely argument is focused on presenting evidence about humans being irrational, however he never builds on the implications of this problem for the society and humanity, giving just some hints and centring almost exclusively in presenting the most surprising experiments he designed and tested.

Predictably Irrational don't add much new to the domain, it is an interesting and quick read, but if you really want to delve in, look instead for "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.

Adam

A look into what motivates us and how our hidden desires contribute to our behavior.

Vahe Taamazyan

Great book! The author has done an outstanding job!

Cams Campbell

I literally just finished this yesterday. It came recommended by a good friend of mine.

It's all about how we are all not only irrational, but predictably so. A good example is seen in his example of the advert for a subscription to the Economist. The web-only subscription is $59, the print-only subscription is $125 and the print AND web subscription is $125. Most of his students picked the print and web subscription. But when the print-only subscription was removed, most students went for the web only. Nobody in either case picked the print-only subscription. 

He explains that none of this has anything to do with rationality, but that the print-only subscription is placed deliberately as a decoy. 

He looks at why we behave irrationaly when offered anything free, why a cheap asprin doesn't cure a headache quite so well as an expensive one, and so on. It was an enjoyable read, however I did find it to be a little repetitive and over long.

Carolina Lopes

Dan Ariely is phenomenal. If you're into psychology, economics or marketing, you'll probably have a great time with this one.

How do we think about money? What caused bankers to lose sight of the economy? What caused individuals to take on mortgages that were not within their means? What irrational forces guided our decisions? And how can we recover from an economic crisis? In this revised and expanded edition of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Predictably Irrational, Duke University's behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the hidden forces that shape our decisions, including some of the causes responsible for the current economic crisis. Bringing a much-needed dose of sophisticated psychological study to the realm of public policy, Ariely offers his own insights into the irrationalities of everyday life, the decisions that led us to the financial meltdown of 2008, and the general ways we get ourselves into trouble. Blending common experiences and clever experiments with groundbreaking analysis, Ariely demonstrates how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities. As he explains, our reliance on standard economic theory to design personal, national, and global policies may, in fact, be dangerous. The mistakes that we make as individuals and institutions are not random, and they can aggregate in the market—with devastating results. In light of our current economic crisis, the consequences of these systematic and predictable mistakes have never been clearer. Packed with new studies and thought-provoking responses to readers' questions and comments, this revised and expanded edition of Predictably Irrational will change the way we interact with the world—from the small decisions we make in our own lives to the individual and collective choices that shape our economy.

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition

Rachel Stratton

Frida Wiig 

Ilyas Gaifullin

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup? When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we? In this newly revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.

Lindsey Barnett

Noah Woodman

Hemanth Soni

Why do smart people make irrational decisions every day? The answers will surprise you. Predictably Irrational is an intriguing, witty and utterly original look at why we all make illogical decisions.

Predictably Irrational The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

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