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Predictably Irrational
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Predictably Irrational

The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Dan Ariely
Harper, 2008
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

This is surely one of the decade’s best books on decision making, economics, psychology and behavior – because it touches all of those topics. Author Dan Ariely is a distinguished academician, but his style is so clear, accessible and straightforward that he does not seem to belong to academia at all. Although he recounts numerous experimental procedures and discoveries, he never bogs the reader down in technical minutiae or jargon. Moreover, he provides a clear connection to the reader’s life with every account. The book is eminently practical and stretches beyond the boundaries even of the several sciences in his research. At times, themes from spiritual and philosophical literature resonate in the text. getAbstract believes reading this book can help anyone make more conscious decisions – no matter what those decisions are about, from setting a corporate strategy to finding a date to just choosing what brand of soda to buy.

Summary

Lessons in Irrationality

Author Dan Ariely was 18 when an explosion burned him so severely that he was confined to a hospital for three years. Cut off from friends and normal routines, he began to observe and reflect upon behavior – his own and that of others. He suffered extreme pain from his burns and from the regimen of therapy. Nurses bathed him daily in disinfectant, first tearing off his bandages as quickly as possible. He felt that the pain might have been less if they removed the bandages slowly. The nurses insisted that there was no difference. After he left the hospital, he conducted research at Tel Aviv University that proved his point.

Although his research did not cause a widespread change in patient treatment, it led him to a lifetime of studying why people misjudge the ramifications of their behavior and persist doing unreasonable things. Traditional economic theory dealt with what people should do, and fundamentally assumed that people are rational. Behavioral economics examines what people actually do; in that endeavor, it has discovered the depth and breadth of human irrationality.

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About the Author

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Department of Economics. He is a visiting professor at MIT’s Media Lab.

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