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Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
 
 
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Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Rom Brafman (Author)
Key Phrases: mandated rest period, value attribution, Van Zanten, Community High, Piltdown Man (more...)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Recently we have seen plenty of irrational behavior, whether in politics or the world of finance. What makes people act irrationally? In a timely but thin collection of anecdotes and empirical research, the Brafman brothers—Ari (The Starfish and the Spire), a business expert, and Rom, a psychologist—look at sway, the submerged mental drives that undermine rational action, from the desire to avoid loss to a failure to consider all the evidence or to perceive a person or situation beyond the initial impression and the reluctance to alter a plan that isn't working. To drive home their points, the authors use contemporary examples, such as the pivotal decisions of presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush, coach Steve Spurrier and his Gators football team, and a sudden apparent epidemic of bipolar disorder in children (which may be due more to flawed thinking by doctors making the diagnoses). The stories are revealing, but focused on a few common causes of irrational behavior, the book doesn't delve deeply into the psychological demons that can devastate a person's life and those around him. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Review

Praise for SWAY*

"A breathtaking book that will challenge your every thought, Sway hovers above the intersection of Blink and Freakonomics."--Tom Rath, coauthor of the New York Times #1 bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket?

“Now we know why no one ever coined the phrase ‘rational exuberance.’ Behind the surprising ways we all make choices, the Brafmans find biology, humanity, and the wisdom of our collective experience. As a longtime student of how financial decisions are made, I found their insights utterly fascinating. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop—and I suspect the Brafmans could tell you exactly why!”
--Sallie Krawcheck, CEO, Citi Global Wealth Management

"Count me swayed--but in this instance by the pull of entirely rational forces. Ori and Rom Brafman have done a terrific job of illuminating deep-seated tendencies that skew our behavior in ways that can range from silly to deadly. We'd be fools not to learn what they have to teach us."--Robert B. Cialdini, author of New York Times bestseller Influence

“Brilliant.”
—Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum

"A page-turner of an investigation into how our minds work . . . and trick us. Think you behave rationally? Read this book first."--Timothy Ferriss, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek

 "Sway helped me recognize an aspect of irrational behavior in my experimental work in physics. Sometimes I have jumped into some research that didn't feel quite right . . . but some irrational lure, such as the hope of quick success, pulled me in."--Martin L. Perl, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics


*DISCLAIMER: If you decide to buy this book because of these endorsements, you just got swayed. One of the psychological forces you’ll read about in Sway--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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95 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (95 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
350 of 370 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars When The Emperor Has No Clothes, June 8, 2008
Why would a seasoned pilot, the head of KLM's safety program, ignore his co-pilot and attempt a takeoff in fog at an unfamiliar airport, causing the worst air disaster in history? Why did the co-pilot, who had done exactly the right thing when he reminded his captain that the flight had not been cleared for takeoff, fail to repeat his warning when the pilot pressed ahead?

The collision at Tenerife airport cost the lives of 584 people. Using that accident as their starting point, the Brafman brothers explore the psychological forces that cause people to take large risks to avoid small losses, to judge people and situations by first impressions despite subsequent inconsistent evidence, and to ignore objections from dissenters.

"Sway" is the latest in an engaging series of books like Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" and "Blink" and Steven Levitt's "Freakonomics." The Brafmans' effort is one of the best written and most approachable of the recent crop, and somehow it kept my focused attention for the duration of a cross-country flight--perhaps the authors are appealing to my irrational impulses in ways they don't let on!

Anyway, one of the most interesting parts of the book is the most reassuring. Research reveals that groups often make better decisions if there's a "blocker" or "dissenter" present--even if that person dissents for the wrong reasons. The authors describe a classic experiment in which the test subjects are led to believe they are being tested for their visual skills--three lines of different lengths are to be matched to a fourth line. The differences in line length are very obvious, so there is plainly only one correct answer. If you put the real subject in a room with several actors who are pretending to be test subjects but who have actually been instructed to give a manifestly wrong answer, most subjects in the experiment will behave in a compltely irrational manner, agreeing with the other "subjects" that lines that are obviously different are exactly the same. But if an actor playing "blocker" is added to the mix and points out that the group is wrong, the subject feels free to disagree and usually makes the right choice. This is true even if the "blocker" makes a different "wrong" choice by picking two other lines of plainly different lengths. What this experiement says for the business and political world is that organizations that "brook no dissent" (like the Bush administration) are likely to perform about as well as that ill-fated flight at Tenarife.

Back to the cockpit: pilots at Southwest and other airlines are now trained to avoid the disaster that happened at Tenerife. Pilots are taught to listed to objections from other crew members, and crew members are trained to communicate those objections in a way that enables the pilot to respond quickly and correctly.

The Brafmans approach this fascinating subject with wit and style, and they tackle other interesting problems besides the one described above: why people often judge a book by its cover (so to speak), why people insist on being treated fairly even if that means foregoing a benefit, and why audiences for the French and Russian versions of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire" behave much differently from each other and from their American counterparts.

If you enjoy books like "Sway," you might want to visit my "Quirkology" list. Gladwell and Levitt unleashed a torrent of similarly conceived books, many of which are quite good.

To steal a march from the disclaimer on the back of "Sway" (which you can see above), if you decide to buy the book because of this review, "you just got swayed." But you should still give this review a "helpful" vote.
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73 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Magnetic Read (I've Been Swayed), June 3, 2008
I've always considered myself pragmatic, logical, and clearly even-keeled. Then, I read Ori and Rom's book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. It's a magnetic read and I zipped through it in 2 quick sittings.

I rather like books that make me think twice about truths I hold self-evident. And Sway certainly made me think. Did I pre-judge my employees based on what others had said about them, or their previous jobs? Do I make rash (and possibly dangerous or stupid) choices when I'm committed to a certain plan of action and feel any diversion would be a loss? I certainly look for fairness in my business and personal transactions. But is fairness the key metric? Maybe not.

The book has opened my eyes and mind to new ways of approaching my business activities and relationships and family interactions. Hopefully I will recognize in advance a moment where I might act rash or choose the wrong -- irrational -- path and think again about my choices.
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156 of 173 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars a decent book-let, July 22, 2008
By alaska (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
  
This is yet a another volume in the contemporary genre of books based on a single insight. In this case, the insight is that people often make predictably irrational decisions. This is interesting, and the authors assemble several anecdotes supporting their thesis, but a bit of judicious editing could have distilled their argument into a brief essay. Of course this would have been a less profitable format; one suspects the authors of exploiting an irrational bias favoring books over articles.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, but lacking enough substance
I bought this book because it had good reviews and it seemed to have some interesting ideas. People are irrational. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Sasha

5.0 out of 5 stars Bewilderments be Gone
I Loved this Book. I liked the writing style, the examples, the insights shared. I felt the author represented what I would have previously referred to as "nuts" "holy cow" and... Read more
Published 10 days ago by Scott Burns

2.0 out of 5 stars Not swayed by Sway
Some of it was interesting, but mostly it is one review after another of some minor psych experiment. Read more
Published 27 days ago by Peter Moskos

4.0 out of 5 stars Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior a good book to read in a hectic world
This is good book to read if deal with people who do irrational things for no apparent reason. Perhaps you have done a few yourself? Read more
Published 1 month ago by Rich G

4.0 out of 5 stars Good enough to be leisure reading
A very leisurely, intelligent read, this makes the perfect plane ride book. I am more than sure that some people will criticize it for being too much about the same themes over... Read more
Published 1 month ago by M. Lai

5.0 out of 5 stars late summer gem
I came across this book in the Atlantic bookstore while I was down at the beach for a few days. It reminded me of one of Gladwell's books and I thought I would give it a try... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dean Dobbert

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and fascinaing
Wow, this book is fascinating. It wakes you up to the thought process in many situations and helps you to consider the possible circumstances leading up to an event before... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Larry Durene

4.0 out of 5 stars Scrumptious!
SWAY - The Irresistable Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman - Doubleday Copyright (c) 2008. Read more
Published 2 months ago by William Dahl

4.0 out of 5 stars Vulcan Mr. Spocks We Certainly Are Not
A quick, entertaining read about human reasoning. The authors lay out in each chapter the hidden factors which contribute to our irrational actions. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Franklin the Mouse

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but lacks follow through
Quick read - 181 pages. I banged it out over two days. Sway is a social economic book from the same vein as Freakonomics and The Tipping Point. Read more
Published 2 months ago by B. Flynn

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