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Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions | 
| Author: Dan Ariely
Publisher: Harper Collins Canada
Category: Book
List Price: CDN$ 27.95
Buy New: CDN$ 17.61
You Save: CDN$ 10.34 (37%)
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 286
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.4
ISBN: 006135323X
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.83
EAN: 9780061353239
ASIN: 006135323X
Publication Date: February 7, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 People Are Predictably Interested In More Than Money April 22, 2008
Donald Mitchell (Boston)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Only a professor of behavioral economics would conclude that when people respond to motives other than money they are being predictably irrational. If you want to see some clever experiments that demonstrate that people are interested in things other than money, read this book.
I would like to observe, however, that such experiments have to be taken with a grain of salt when people know that they are experiments or reflect unexpected questions rather than serious looks at on-going behavior in areas where people have a lot of experience. For instance, the book looks at whether and at what price Duke students will sell basketball tickets they have just put a lot of effort into getting. Clearly, there are factors other than profit that motivated the buying in the first place. Most students probably wanted to get lucky and go to the game. Selling a ticket under these circumstances denies the opportunity to go to the game. A ticket broker would make a rational decision about whether to hire students to try get a ticket this way, but a student who does this a few times wouldn't. Study the ticket broker and you'll get more economic behavior. Study the student who wants to go the game and you won't. So why should we be surprised?
I remember being a subject of a lot of these experiments as a student. If the experiment struck me as particularly stupid, I would often feel rebellious and do things to act in noneconomic ways just to prove I was a person. I didn't see that effects like those are being studied here.
If you want to learn about human behavior, I suggest you study all of the motives . . . not just try to understand the economic motives.
In addition, some of the experiments probably depend in part on the common meaning of certain words being different than the definition that a professor would use. I think the experiments about certainty and probability wording may be tainted by that problem.
Professor Ariely is a clever fellow, but I think he stretches his conclusions further than they deserve. He's also interested in finding ways to make people look stupid rather than appreciating the genius that most people exhibit routinely. I couldn't help feeling that there was too much economic motive in his desire to write this book (a P.T. Barnum approach rather than trying to truly educate).
 Excellent book - controversial, but well founded April 3, 2008
Lev Virine (Calgary, AB, Canada)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Predictable Irrational is probably one of the most remarkable books after Freakonomics. This is a book about the paradoxes of human judgment. All people, regardless who they are, country they live in, jobs they have, or language they speak, make standard mistakes because our brains work in certain ways. Predictable Irrational is not the first book about such phenomena. My other favorite books on this subject include The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz and Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer. Similar ideas are discussed in number of industry specific books, such as the project management book Project Decisions: The Art and Science.
What distinguishes Predictable Irrational from the rest is very interesting real life examples and descriptions of some psychological experiments. Dan Ariely does not have complex discussions about psychology, instead he uses amusing examples to clearly illustrate his points. My favorite chapter is related to the effect of relativity and anchoring. Why, for example, have salaries of CEOs increased dramatically after federal security regulators forced companies to disclose them? Or, why are people willing to pay ridiculous prices for luxury items, which does cost so little to produce?
We can train ourselves to be better decision-makes. In fact, decision-making is a key life skill. We may be able to overcome the illusions Dan Ariely talks about, by leaning about them. This is not easy as some illusions are quite hard to recognize. However, this does not mean that we should not try. It is like leaning to swim: at the beginning, people are afraid to swim. It is known psychological bias, but then people learn to overcome this bias by a series of drills using proven techniques. For example, I'm sure that when you start comparing prices in department stores, you will recall Dan Ariely's book and make better choices.
I highly recommend it.
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