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|  | Author: Dan Ariely
Publisher: Harper
List Price: $27.99
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Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 2039
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Roughcut
Edition: Rev Exp
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061854549
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.83
EAN: 9780061854545
ASIN: 0061854549
Publication Date: June 1, 2009
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Showing reviews 21-25 of 39
 Great book on many levels August 14, 2009
Elisa Robyn (Colorado)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dan Ariely has hit a perfect tone in presenting solid research to a wide audience. Predicatbly Irrational is a fun read, and at the same time a book I would use in a graduate psychology course. On one level this books helps us understand our own, at times, irrational choices, as well as the odd choices made by people around us. After reading this I found that I was able to slow some of my reactions, such as a response to something that is "free."
There are also, however, deeper application levels of this book. How we present things effects decisions people make, which means that marketing can powerfully influence our choices as well as some of our moral decisions. In this light I found the book insightful about the power of minor suggestion to change an outcome. Anyone invovled in human research will be interested in these findings. Anyone involved in leadership would also benefit from this book, as would any life coach working with people on financial decisions.
The book challenges our assumptions about supply and demand, the cost of "free", the power of social norms, the influence of arousal, the price of ownership, our ability to let a "door close" behind us, the effect of expectations and a great deal about lying and truth telling.
The book is enjoyable to read, well researched and documented. I recommend this book to anyone interested in how they personally make decisions, how other people make seemingly irrational decisions (think Wall Street), as well as anyone interested in social psychology or economic psychology.
Unpredictably Entertaining and Thought Provoking August 8, 2009
jimbo (Santa Clarita, CA)
This should be must reading for all MBA students, and highly recommend for anyone who lives in the real world. Most business students are taught a number of elegant, algebraically sound models such "supply and demand, "cost benefit", "expected economic return", etc. The goal of using these models is to guide and help predict human behavior, especially with respect to economic decisions: "what car should I buy, what securities should I invest in, where should I live?" and so on. The underlying assumption is that human behavior is rational, and that behavior is motivated by rational evaluation of the cost and benefits our actions.
Dan Ariely gives us all sharp rap to the side the head with an entertaining reminder that much of our behavior is not rational, most especially behaviors which we assume to be highly rational and logical. Ariely sites a number of experiments that show sharp counterexamples to commonly accepted assumptions about how our decision making processes work in areas ranging from how much we're willing to pay for coffee to how much we're willing to pay for medicine to how (if) we practice safe sex. He goes on to talk about the implications of these decision making processes and how they can lead us astray or at a minimum lead us to unexpected results, which may be baffling to our supposedly rational selves.
The lessons he conveys are both amusing and sobering; perhaps can be summed up as "we're not as smart as we think we are". A lesson that never gets old, because as humans we never really learn it.
Ariely writes in a breezy and accessible style, very unusual for a professional academic, and almost unheard of for an economics professor. He's created a fun, easy read that will leave you thinking deeply about your own behavior - and thinking twice before you sign up for that free magazine subscription.
 Insightful Read August 8, 2009
Jiang Xueqin (Toronto, Canada)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Professor Dan Ariely, a behaviorial economist at Duke, wrote "Predictably Irrational," a compilation of his ground-breaking psychology experiments into human behavior as a cogent counter to mainstream economics' standard model of individual behavior. Most economists assume that individuals behave "rationally," meaning that they accurately assess and evaluate risk and make decisions to maximize their economic self-interest.
This "rational" model of economic behavior that underpins economics and permits for economics' cold, sober mathematical approach is simply irrational, according to Professor Ariely. First, people may be clear-headed most of the time, but it's very easy for them to lose all sound judgement when aroused or excited: all men know the importance of wearing a condom, but how many do it in the heat of passion? Second, his experiments have demonstrated that people do not evaluate and judge in absolute terms, but in relative terms. That's why you should always go into a bar with a friend who's shorter, uglier, and fatter than you. Also, consider the awesome marketing power of the word "free": given a choice between a pair of socks discounted at 50% or a "buy two pair, get one free" deal most consumers would choose the latter, even though the discount is only 33%. Then there's the power of pricing: in his most insightful chapter "Why a 50 cent Advil really is more effective than a 1 cent Advil" Dr. Ariely explains experiments where by only raising the prices of performance-enhancing drugs he raised the students' performance. And then there's the power of suggestions and anchoring: by getting people to think in high numbers you can also get them to pay high prices for cheap quality goods. Morever, expectations will influence outcome: people will like something better if they went in thinking they would like it better. Dr. Ariely research shows that people enjoy Coke not because it tastes better but because its powerful brand makes it feel better to drink: Madison Avenue does deserve its paycheck.
None of Dr. Ariely's conclusions really fit into economics' understanding of the world, but then again wasn't mainstream economics partly responsible for the world's current financial meltdown? The problem is that economics is a recent phenomenon with only a few centuries of history, but humans have been around millions of year and have been designed to survive in this world by interacting properly with others. The rub is that free market capitalism is also a recent phenomenon, and to do well in this brave new world individuals really ought to be predictably rational instead of so emotional and instinctive. In other words, economics is a normative discipline, offering guidelines on how to properly position yourself in a free market economy.
The really positive news is that Dr. Ariely confirms with his psychological experiments what spiritual and religious people have known for thousands of years: the power of the mind is simply incredible and unquantifiable. It's not changing the price of a drug that makes it more effective; it's how the change motivates and encourages the mind. Thus, prayer, meditation, religious worship, church meetings, and the like are as effective as placebos: which is to say they're very effective. From an objective perspective, they may have no intrinsic economic or scientific value but their ability to transform people and their lives is priceless. Perhaps the real problem with these activities is that they've been free for so many thousands of years, marketers, entrepreneurs, and economists can't price and extract value from them, and so ignore them.
While Dr. Ariely's book is sure to convince nearly all of his readers. But I do have a suggestion on how Dr. Ariely can improve his research: he needs to consider the idea of variation. Traditional economists believe that the average individual is predictably rational, and Dr. Ariely believes the opposite. Both mistakenly adhere to the idea that an "average" individual exists. What exists and is more pertinent to the study of economics is the group, and in any group you have variation in personality and behavior. In any group, you are bound to have the predictably rational, the predictably irrational, the unpredictably rational, and the unpredictably irrational. In Dr. Ariely's experiments there was never a 100% majority: a convincing majority was 75-80%. You're always going to have a good minority of 10-20% who go their own separate way (as one Dr. Ariely's experiment shows, when beer drinkers will order beers they don't like just so that they can beers different from those of their drinking partners).
Variation is the ultimate rule of human behavior, and for economists to gain deeper insight into human behavior this ought to be next great area of focus and study.
A Great Read August 3, 2009
John Chancellor (New Orleans)
This is an absolutely fantastic read. I always approach a book written by a college professor with a bit of concern. So often I find the author must feel a need to write for their peers and not for the general public. This is a wonderful exception. This book is well written in easy to understand language.
But if it were just well written, it would not be much of a story. Dan Ariely tells us that we are not only irrational but that our irrationality is totally predictable. Then he goes on to show by example after example the truth of that statement.
There are some wonderful marketing lessons in this book. Any one involved in marketing needs to read this book. So much of what Dan has discovered is counterintuitive.
The first lesson is that price is relative. He gives the example about a bread maker priced at $200 that was not selling. When a new more expensive model was introduced at twice the price, the original model started flying off the shelf. The $200 model, relative to the $400 model was a real bargain. And that is how our mind works. We do not evaluate things in a vacuum. We compare them to some other known item.
Another lesson he talks about is the cost of free. He shows example after example of people who make bad choices based on something free.
An extremely interesting but totally irrational concept is the value we attribute to something after we own it. We overvalue things we own. By a wide margin. Again, Dan gives lots of research to back up his theory.
There are countless other examples of irrational behavior that we engage in each and every day. It is truly alarming the amount of dishonesty that goes on. It is also unbelievable how people justify their dishonesty.
If you are at all interested in why people do what they do, I highly recommend this book. It is a fantastic read, full of interesting stories and clever experiments. You will shake your head in disbelief but you know it is true.
You will get a much better understand of yourself and others. It will help you in dealing with others and if you take the messages to heart, you will understand yourself better.
Highly recommended.
It will help you better understand your own not always rational way of making decisions July 31, 2009
Shalom Freedman (Jerusalem,Israel)
This book's greatest value is that it will teach its readers something about their own nature. It teaches us that we despite often feeling that we are making rational independent decisions, we are in fact unconsciously being influenced to decide in ways not always the best for us. Ariely opens the book with the story of his own experience while in hospital where he was suffering from burns on eighty percent of his body. There were two ways of taking off the bandages one a fast intense way, and the second a far slower one. The first way caused more intense pain for a shorter time. The second one caused less pain for a longer time. For Ariely the first way was much much more painful. The whole staff of the Burns unit were experienced people who believed they were acting in the best interests of the patient. Ariely when suffering as a patient understood that there was something irrational in their behavior. He devised a whole different way of removing the bandanges one which included going slower, giving the patient rest periods for recuperation. This experience taught him to suspect that people were often acting irrationally and against their own interests and goals without knowing it.
In the body of the book he examines a wide variety of situations in which humans think they are acting rationally, when in fact they are not. Many of the cases have to do with buying and selling, with financial transactions but there are others which experience from other areas of life, for instance that of sexual arousal. This is a chapter which raised so problems for me morally as I wondered at the rightness of the kinds of options Ariely uses in his survey. In any case his conclusion in regard to 'arousal' is that it diminishes the restraint and self- control of the subject. Thus as he understands it those interested in promoting sexual restraint and abstinence (For instance in the hope of preventing out- of- wedlock teenage pregnancies) should work on avoiding the arousal situation rather than encouraging restraint while already within it. This like many of the 'conclusions' of the book seems more like 'common sense' than like anything revolutionary.
Much of the evidence brought to bear in the book results from experiments done on college students. Often these are ingenious .They show again and again that decisions are influenced by the context in which we make them, by the people we have around us, by the way the material is presented to us. The book shows how presentation of questions can lead to the tilting of answers without our really knowing it.
Arielly is not suggesting that we are totally irrational but rather that there are many irrational elements in our decisions which we are not conscious of. The implicit suggestion is that he by helping us be more concious of these irrationalities will help us be more rational.
That is , until the next time.
Showing reviews 21-25 of 39
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