|  | Author: Dan Ariely
Publisher: Harper
List Price: $27.99
Buy New: $10.75
as of 11/22/2009 18:50 CST details
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Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 1522
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Showing reviews 26-30 of 39
 It's Rational to Buy This Book July 27, 2009
Mary Anne Shew (Upstate New York)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ever wonder why so many people spend so much for a simple cup of coffee at Starbucks? Did you know that a FREE! offer can cause you to make a bad buying decision? Or that firm deadlines are the key to reducing procrastination?
This book blows apart the long-held assumptions of the rational economic model that say humans are capable of making the right decisions for ourselves. We are extraordinarily influenced by the topics outlined in the chapters such as relativity, fallacy of supply and demand, the cost of zero cost, and several others.
In this time of less spending and the search for more value, this book wil help the reader watch for the other, less visible influences on buying decisions besides price and features.
 Readable and Informative, if Not Groundbreaking July 24, 2009
Steve S. (Los Angeles)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dan Ariely writes about how we humans tend to make the same mistakes over and over, especially when it comes to money. For example, once we own something, we tend to place a higher value on it. We hang on to a old vaccuum cleaner that we will never use again because it is ours, but we would not accept a similar item if someone offered it as a gift. Ariely gives better and more interesting examples of this and other human quirks.
Predictably Irrational is fun to read, with many descriptions of simply experiments. I doubt anyone would read this book and actually dislike it. On the other hand, there is nothing original here. The idea Ariely presents are have been out there for some time, even in the popular science category.
Excellent, But Just a Little Bit Short July 14, 2009
Stan Eads (Santa Fe, NM)
This is really an excellent presentation, well-written and containing some excellent food for thought. It actually may be laying out the basis for a paradigm shift that redefines a lot of things in our world. The implications of Dr. Ariely's research are profound and even shocking. Yes, very intelligent and logical persons can be counted on to behave in predictably irrational ways, and this impacts lives and society very deeply, in ways which may be very bad indeed.
Alas, I was a bit put off by some of the follow-up to his experiments. Dr. Ariely repeatedly drew conclusions from the irrational behaviors exhibited by his subjects, speculating about how people might be educated about this disturbing tendency toward irrationality and perhaps curb it. But time after time, he stopped his experiments short of testing whether or not such foreknowledge would work. For example, he gives groups a simple test and rewards the subjects with $.50 for each correct answer. Those who turn in their papers get an average of 3/20 correct. The self-reporters, on the honor system to report their scores, claim an average of 5.5/20. Why stop the experiment there? The next group should be told the average scores of prior groups and then be allowed to self-report to see if they got it and behaved with more honesty. This was not done - or if it was, the results were not considered appropriate for our viewing. A similar extension could have been made in most of Dr. Ariely's tests, potentially providing insights into the the value of awareness in ameliorating the predictably irrational or dishonest behavior. He speculated freely about this, but brought no research to bear.
Secondly, I found it disturbing that the author would say such things as "Standard economics assumes that we are rational - that we know all the pertinent information about our decisions..." (pg 239). He says many similar things in the "The Fallacy of Supply and Demand". For one thing, he has conflated the definitions of capitalism and economics. For another, the capitalistic principles of supply and demand state clearly that imperfect knowledge results in imperfect decisions - it definitely does NOT assume that we "know all the pertinent information". Still, Dr. Ariely has demonstrated that this applies more broadly than we realized. It is not merely perfect knowledge of the markets themselves that is needed (which is NEVER present in any event); it is also knowledge of ourselves and the many ways that we are unconsciously susceptible to outside influences.
To me, the extent to which I am reacting to something, when I thought that I was responding, is the jaw-dropper of this book, and worth the price many times over. I hope to see further work by the author containing followup tests of our ability to free ourselves from this trap via awareness.
I rate Predictably Irrational a "Strong Buy".
A very good read which will make you think July 10, 2009
B. White (Nantucket, MA)
My husband and I both read this book and both of us greatly enjoyed it. It is easy enough to be classified, in our opinion, as "beach" reading. It is interesting and makes you think about your own decision-making processes in ordinary circumstances, like in restaurants. It also has over-arching implications for issues such as corruption and cheating in business and on Wall Street.
quite good but some things are obvious July 5, 2009
Victor Melamed (CA USA)
I liked the book. The experiments the author describes a quite interesting. I would have skipped the chapter about the "sexual arousal"
experiment. It is not because it is pushing the limits but more because it
is so glaringly obvious. There are probably hundreds of jokes on the topic
which corroborate the conclusion of the experiment.
Also the experiments are performed on college students mostly which is not
a correct representative sample - but the author acknowledges this.
Overall a good read - my expectations were that this is a book written
by a Nobel price winner - I had confused the author with another behavioral economist who got a Nobel proce a couple of years ago.
Compared to the expectations I was a little disappointed - since I was expecting a Nobel price level book. But overall a good book.
Showing reviews 26-30 of 39
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