Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, an MIT professor, combines economic theory with some interesting experiments that test people's behavior to unravel why we act irrationally under certain circumstances. The introduction is a pretty good sample of what you'll be getting. If it doesn't appeal to you, don't bother continuing.
Dan Ariely discusses how behavior changes in social vs. economic realms. (Turns out we're happy to help for free--a social norm--but not so much if we're paid--we transition to a market norm.) He goes through concepts such as arbitrary coherence (once we associate a price to something, even arbitrarily, we use that price as a baseline from then on); the "decoy effect" (if we are given 3 options and 1 of them is a carefully placed, undesirable decoy, we will be unwittingly guided to one of the remaining choices, but not the other); the placebo effect; priming; the power of "free" (and our overriding fear of loss); and cheating (how we would never do it in some circumstances but don't really think of it in others).
It reminded me of Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. It will likely appeal to folks who liked Freakonomics, Stumbling on Happiness, or something by Malcolm Gladwell. For similar books click here...
Dan Ariely discusses how behavior changes in social vs. economic realms. (Turns out we're happy to help for free--a social norm--but not so much if we're paid--we transition to a market norm.) He goes through concepts such as arbitrary coherence (once we associate a price to something, even arbitrarily, we use that price as a baseline from then on); the "decoy effect" (if we are given 3 options and 1 of them is a carefully placed, undesirable decoy, we will be unwittingly guided to one of the remaining choices, but not the other); the placebo effect; priming; the power of "free" (and our overriding fear of loss); and cheating (how we would never do it in some circumstances but don't really think of it in others).
It reminded me of Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. It will likely appeal to folks who liked Freakonomics, Stumbling on Happiness, or something by Malcolm Gladwell. For similar books click here...
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