Buy new:
$11.99$11.99
FREE delivery: Friday, Feb 10 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy Used: $10.00
Other Sellers on Amazon
FREE Shipping
94% positive
FREE Shipping
FREE Shipping
99% positive over last 12 months

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions Paperback – Illustrated, April 27, 2010
Price | New from | Used from |
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial |
Hardcover, Illustrated, Deckle Edge
"Please retry" | $16.99 | $2.88 |
Mass Market Paperback, International Edition
"Please retry" | $10.42 | $3.29 |
Audio CD, CD, Unabridged
"Please retry" | $23.39 | $2.94 |
- Kindle
$13.99 Read with Our Free App -
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial - Hardcover
$25.58 - Paperback
$11.99 - Mass Market Paperback
$7.27 - Audio CD
$34.95
Enhance your purchase
Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?
When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?
In this newly revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateApril 27, 2010
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.86 x 8 inches
- ISBN-109780061353246
- ISBN-13978-0061353246
![]() |
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
- That's a lesson we can all learn: the more we have, the more we want. And the only cure is to break the cycle of relativity.Highlighted by 5,130 Kindle readers
- With everything you do, in fact, you should train yourself to question your repeated behaviors.Highlighted by 3,842 Kindle readers
- The second quirk is that we focus on what we may lose, rather than what we may gain.Highlighted by 3,537 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This is a wonderful, eye-opening book. Deep, readable, and providing refreshing evidence that there are domains and situations in which material incentives work in unexpected ways. We humans are humans, with qualities that can be destroyed by the introduction of economic gains. A must read!” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
“An entertaining look at human foibles.” — New York Times
“Sly and lucid. . . . Predictably Irrational is a far more revolutionary book than its unthreatening manner lets on.” — New York Times Book Review
“Surprisingly entertaining. . . . Easy to read. . . . Ariely’s book makes economics and the strange happenings of the human mind fun.” — USA Today
“A fascinating romp through the science of decision-making that unmasks the ways that emotions, social norms, expectations, and context lead us astray.” — Time magazine
“In creative ways, author Dan Ariely puts rationality to the test. . . . New experiments and optimistic ideas tumble out of him, like water from a fountain.” — Boston Globe
“An entertaining tour of the many ways people act against their best interests, drawing on Ariely’s own ingeniously designed experiments. . . . Personal and accessible.” — BusinessWeek
“Ariely’s book addresses some weighty issues . . . with an unexpected dash of humor.” — Entertainment Weekly
“A spry treatise on how the world works and how we spend our money based on other people’s rules. . . . Ariely has a brilliant solution to a problem that is very real . . . Make a point of seeing this book. That way you’ll know you want it, and you will.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“Inventive. . . . An accessible account. . . . Ariely is a more than capable storyteller . . . If only more researchers could write like this, the world would be a better place.” — Financial Times
“Ariely’s intelligent, exuberant style and thought-provoking arguments make for a fascinating, eye-opening read.” — Publishers Weekly
“A taxonomy of financial folly.” — The New Yorker
“Smart.” — Slate
“A marvelous book that is both thought provoking and highly entertaining, ranging from the power of placebos to the pleasures of Pepsi. Ariely unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks that our minds play on us, and shows us how we can prevent being fooled.” — Jerome Groopman, New York Times bestselling author of How Doctors Think
“Dan Ariely is a genius at understanding human behavior: no economist does a better job of uncovering and explaining the hidden reasons for the weird ways we act, in the marketplace and out. PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL will reshape the way you see the world, and yourself, for good.” — James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds
“PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL is a charmer-filled with clever experiments, engaging ideas, and delightful anecdotes. Dan Ariely is a wise and amusing guide to the foibles, errors, and bloopers of everyday decision-making.” — Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and author of Stumbling on Happiness
“The most difficult part of investing is managing your emotions. Dan explains why that is so challenging for all of us, and how recognizing your built-in biases can help you avoid common mistakes.” — Charles Schwab, Chairman and CEO, The Charles Schwab Corporation
“PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL is wildly original. It shows why—much more often than we usually care to admit—humans make foolish, and sometimes disastrous, mistakes. Ariely not only gives us a great read; he also makes us much wiser.” — George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 Koshland Professor of Economics, University of California at Berkeley
“Dan Ariely’s ingenious experiments explore deeply how our economic behavior is influenced by irrational forces and social norms. In a charmingly informal style that makes it accessible to a wide audience, PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL provides a standing criticism to the explanatory power of rational egotistic choice.” — Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Prize in Economics 1972, Professor of Economics Stanford University
“A delightfully brilliant guide to our irrationality—and how to overcome it—in the marketplace and everyplace.” — Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm and Dealing with Darwin
“After reading this book, you will understand the decisions you make in an entirely new way.” — Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab and founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association
“PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL is a scientific but imminently readable and decidedly insightful look into why we do what we do every day...and why, even though we ‘know better,’ we may never change.” — Wenda Harris Millard, President, Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
“Predictably Irrational is an important book. Full of valuable and entertaining insights that will make an impact on your business, professional, and personal life.” — Jack M Greenberg, Chairman, Western Union Company, Retired Chairman and CEO, McDonald's Corporation
“Predictably Irrational is clever, playful,humorous, hard hitting, insightful, and consistently fun and exciting to read.” — Paul Slovic, Founder and President, Decision Research
“Freakonomics held that people respond to incentives, perhaps in undesirable ways, but always rationally. Dan Ariely shows you how people are deeply irrational, and predictably so.” — Chip Heath, Co-Author, Made to Stick, Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business
From the Back Cover
Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin?
Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?
When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?
In this newly revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.
About the Author
Dan Ariely is the bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. He is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and is the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere. He lives in North Carolina with his family.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition
By Dan ArielyHarperCollins Publishers
Copyright © 2010 Dan ArielyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-135324-6
C H A P T E R 1
The Truth about Relativity
Why Everything Is Relative—Even
When It Shouldn't Be
One day while browsing the World Wide Web (obviously
for work—not just wasting time), I stumbled on the fol-
lowing ad, on the Web site of a magazine, the Economist.
predictably irrational
2
I read these offers one at a time. The fi rst offer—the Inter-
net subscription for $59—seemed reasonable. The second
option—the $125 print subscription—seemed a bit expen-
sive, but still reasonable.
But then I read the third option: a print and Internet sub-
scription for $125. I read it twice before my eye ran back to the
previous options. Who would want to buy the print option
alone, I wondered, when both the Internet and the print sub-
scriptions were offered for the same price? Now, the print- only
option may have been a typographical error, but I suspect that
the clever people at the Economist's London offi ces (and they
are clever—and quite mischievous in a British sort of way) were
actually manipulating me. I am pretty certain that they wanted
me to skip the Internet- only option (which they assumed would
be my choice, since I was reading the advertisement on the Web)
and jump to the more expensive option: Internet and print.
But how could they manipulate me? I suspect it's because
the Economist's marketing wizards (and I could just picture
them in their school ties and blazers) knew something impor-
tant about human behavior: humans rarely choose things in
absolute terms. We don't have an internal value meter that
tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the
relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate
value accordingly. (For instance, we don't know how much a
six- cylinder car is worth, but we can assume it's more expen-
sive than the four- cylinder model.)
In the case of the Economist, I may not have known whether
the Internet- only subscription at $59 was a better deal than the
print- only option at $125. But I certainly knew that the print-
and- Internet option for $125 was better than the print- only
option at $125. In fact, you could reasonably deduce that in
the combination package, the Internet subscription is free! “It's
the truth about relativity
3
a bloody steal—go for it, governor!” I could almost hear them
shout from the riverbanks of the Thames. And I have to admit,
if I had been inclined to subscribe I probably would have taken
the package deal myself. (Later, when I tested the offer on a
large number of participants, the vast majority preferred the
Internet- and- print deal.)
So what was going on here? Let me start with a funda-
mental observation: most people don't know what they want
unless they see it in context. We don't know what kind of
racing bike we want—until we see a champ in the Tour de
France ratcheting the gears on a par tic u lar model. We don't
know what kind of speaker system we like—until we hear a
set of speakers that sounds better than the previous one. We
don't even know what we want to do with our lives—until
we fi nd a relative or a friend who is doing just what we think
we should be doing. Everything is relative, and that's the
point. Like an airplane pi lot landing in the dark, we want
runway lights on either side of us, guiding us to the place
where we can touch down our wheels.
In the case of the Economist, the decision between the Internet-
only and print- only options would take a bit of thinking. Think-
ing is diffi cult and sometimes unpleasant. So the Economist's
marketers offered us a no- brainer: relative to the print-only op-
tion, the print- and- Internet option looks clearly superior.
The geniuses at the Economist aren't the only ones who un-
derstand the importance of relativity. Take Sam, the tele vi sion
salesman. He plays the same general type of trick on us when
he decides which tele vi sions to put together on display:
36-inch Panasonic for $690
42- inch Toshiba for $850
50-inch Philips for $1,480
predictably irrational
4
Which one would you choose? In this case, Sam knows
that customers fi nd it diffi cult to compute the value of differ-
ent options. (Who really knows if the Panasonic at $690 is a
better deal than the Philips at $1,480?) But Sam also knows
that given three choices, most people will take the middle
choice (as in landing your plane between the runway lights).
So guess which tele vi sion Sam prices as the middle option?
That's right—the one he wants to sell!
Of course, Sam is not alone in his cleverness. The New
York Times ran a story recently about Gregg Rapp, a restau-
rant con sul tant, who gets paid to work out the pricing for
menus. He knows, for instance, how lamb sold this year as
opposed to last year; whether lamb did better paired with
squash or with risotto; and whether orders decreased when
the price of the main course was hiked from $39 to $41.
One thing Rapp has learned is that high- priced entrées on
the menu boost revenue for the restaurant—even if no one
buys them. Why? Because even though people generally won't
buy the most expensive dish on the menu, they will order the
second most expensive dish. Thus, by creating an expensive
dish, a restaurateur can lure customers into ordering the sec-
ond most expensive choice (which can be cleverly engineered
to deliver a higher profi t margin).1
So let's run through the Economist's sleight of hand in
slow motion.
As you recall, the choices were:
1.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition by Dan Ariely. Copyright © 2010 Dan Ariely. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : 0061353248
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; Expanded edition (April 27, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780061353246
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061353246
- Item Weight : 10.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.86 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Dan Ariely is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT. His work has been featured in leading scholarly journals as well as a variety of popular media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Business 2.0, Scientific American, and Science. He has also been featured on CNN and National Public Radio. Dan publishes widely in the leading scholarly journals in economics, psychology, and business. His work has been featured in a variety of media including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Business 2.0, Scientific American, Science and CNN. He splits his time between Princeton, NJ, and Cambridge, MA.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2018
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Zero cost irrationality as described by PI is the concept that reviews the large bias humans show towards "free." I put free in quotations as I am using the term loosely in this context as often the decision chosen is not without cost, and in relative terms, it is often not the option that held the most value per unit of the exchanging intermediary item. In fact, just a few hours before writing this brief review, I purchased three Publix cloth shopping bags that I had no intention of purchasing beforehand, but because they were buy three get one free. I can say in earnest, without that free offer, I would have completely shrugged off the Publix bag, to purchase at another time. A potential solution to this problem, derived from a specific example he mentions within the chapter, is to mentally give the "free" item a price, even one as low as one penny. This, surprisingly, nullifies the zero cost irrationality for most individuals, allowing for proper cost-benefit analysis of the additional item or offer.
Procrastination, or the giving up of long-term goals for immediate gratification, this desire for immediate satisfaction permeates particularly strongly throughout American culture. The effect of this national procrastination can be seen by abhorrently low national saving rate, or more implicitly or healthcare system that is more reactive than proactive. Though I personally am not a pure procrastinator, in fact many would consider me an extrovert, I believe that there quite a bit I still put off that I do so exactly because I fail to properly evaluate the opportunity cost of the long term benefit of said action. For example, I did a quick back of an envelope calculation of me putting of my savings to next year, rather than not starting when I begun work two years ago. This three wait has cost me over half a million dollars (Assumptions: Roth IRA, with locked six percent APR, maturing in fifty years). I have begun taking Ariely's advice, and setting hard deadlines for many things, such as this particular book review which I gave myself exactly the day after completing the book to complete, no exceptions and no excuses.
The final personal irrationality I've found plaguing my decision making has been that of `keeping doors open,' or not being able to stand the idea of closing our alternative options. My irrational in my context, has to do with maybe not a plethora of options, as emphasized within the book, but rather when I am down to two options that have to deal with something within the social sphere. Case in point, I would fret over the decision of whether I should continue to chase after a girl or letting her go, or going to a party where I would probably feel uncomfortable or not, though these examples may seem simple to an someone else, I struggled with these decisions constantly. Often than not, I found myself unable to take the choice that errs on the side of negative (deciding to stay home, or leave the girl alone) as I felt doing so eliminates a multitude of options without producing any new ones of benefit. I am curious to whether how much confidence has to do with the exact experiment presented within the book. I speculate if participants were required to self select as confident, or perhaps anchored to think of confidence, if such decisions become easier. I wonder this, since many my such decision-making gridlocks underlie a lack of self confidence, perhaps those with more of it at the time of the test may change results. In sum, Ariely's solution, as I interpret it, the cure for procrastination is really premised by self-confidence, where one sets long term goals and bravely commits to them.
The book discussed around 14 irrationalities in total across 13 chapters, each holding a slight new scope of human cognizance to gain. The three above mentioned irrationalities after a deep introspective look, I felt held the most personal utility. I genuinely I have a new lens to the world. I genuinely believe that holds the potential to enrich the perspective of most readers as well, no matter their relative amount of academic background on the subject.
-> How humans perceive value - "not in absolute terms, but one with respect to another," and this is how companies and marketers deceive people with "seemingly attractive" offers that you cannot resist.
-> Market forces of supply and demand only apply to rational people - in the real world, companies exploit people's irrationality and influence prices and demand.
-> The power of FREE - People are, in essence, losing some other resource in trying to procure FREE items.
-> The wonderful distinction of market and social norms, and why and how they cannot coexist. He also explains how companies can motivate their employees using social benefits, which are cheaper and stronger than financial incentives.
-> As long as money is not involved, we are caring social animals.
-> Why people exhibit different behaviors when they are "normal" (cold state) and when they are "aroused" (hot state). Learning to bridge the gap between the two extreme states is very important and will help you avoid making errors or bad decisions that you will forever regret.
-> The high price of ownership reveals three irrational quirks in human behavior - we are deeply attached to what we have; we often focus on what we may lose (also called Loss Aversion); we assume other people (or buyers of our goods) to also value the goods in the same manner as we do.
-> People's expectations can cloud their thinking, and they use this as a marketing strategy to influence their friends' tastes and preferences.
-> Price is so powerful that it can drive the Placebo Effect - the more the price, the more the utility you derive from the product. This phenomenon was explained with Aspirin - why a 50 cent Aspirin can do what a penny Aspirin can't.
-> Trust is an important public resource and a necessary lubricant of the economy. A few bad players in the market can completely erode it.
-> Why even the most morally upright person can be susceptible to making small crimes that hardly matter. However, a contemplation of moral behavior or a religious code of law before doing any action can greatly reduce the likelihood of people committing these petty crimes.
-> The idea of FREE LUNCHES in behavior economics; the science of economics should be modified to account for how people actually behave instead of how they should behave in society.
These are just some of the important principles explained in the book through experiments and startling revelations. It is easy to read and highly entertaining. However, there is one minor flaw in this book - the concepts and results described are all based on experiments performed on American college students or the western society, which may not be applicable to the more conservative societies in the world.
BOTTOM LINE - Predictably Irrational is a wonderful book with new insights into irrational behavior in people. But for the one criticism, I believe this can change the way people think about economics, and can result in newer norms that account for our actual and not ideal behavior.
PS: For people interested in reading more about behavior and cognitive sciences, I have the following book suggestions:
1. "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg.
2. "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahnem.
3. "The Upside of Irrationality" by Dan Ariely.
4. "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail -- but Some Don't" by Nate Silver
Top reviews from other countries

GET THIS BOOK. That's it.
A BRILLIANT read. Irrespective of what you do, you must read this textbook of human behaviour & how amazingly complex our minds are decisions are.
A sample of what's inside:
Consider an experiment on 100 students based on an old subscription model of The Economist magazine, offering:
Option 1 - a web subscription for $59
Option 2 - a print subscription for $125
Option 3 - a web & print subscription for $125
16 students chose Option 1
0 students chose Option 2 (obvious!!)
84 students chose Option 3.
Revenue earned = $11,444.
The author then removed Option 2 (Print sub for $125) Results:
68 students chose Option 1
32 students went for Option 3Revenue earned = $8,012
What could have possibly changed their minds? It was the mere presence of THE DECOY (2nd option) that made them buy MORE expensive options in the 1st experiment & less in the 2nd experiment.
The book is replete with such experiments. Also, real-life examples of human behaviour when it comes to product pricing (including 'anchoring'), buying houses, cheating, Starbucks Upsells, what Ford learned from Toyota about Car servicing and too many brilliant quotes.


Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on August 11, 2019
GET THIS BOOK. That's it.
A BRILLIANT read. Irrespective of what you do, you must read this textbook of human behaviour & how amazingly complex our minds are decisions are.
A sample of what's inside:
Consider an experiment on 100 students based on an old subscription model of The Economist magazine, offering:
Option 1 - a web subscription for $59
Option 2 - a print subscription for $125
Option 3 - a web & print subscription for $125
16 students chose Option 1
0 students chose Option 2 (obvious!!)
84 students chose Option 3.
Revenue earned = $11,444.
The author then removed Option 2 (Print sub for $125) Results:
68 students chose Option 1
32 students went for Option 3Revenue earned = $8,012
What could have possibly changed their minds? It was the mere presence of THE DECOY (2nd option) that made them buy MORE expensive options in the 1st experiment & less in the 2nd experiment.
The book is replete with such experiments. Also, real-life examples of human behaviour when it comes to product pricing (including 'anchoring'), buying houses, cheating, Starbucks Upsells, what Ford learned from Toyota about Car servicing and too many brilliant quotes.


Although people aren’t rational, they aren’t randomly irrational, either. Instead, they are predictably irrational, in a way that can be studied and measured, and be built into a more realistic economic theory: behavioural economics.
Dan Ariely, psychologist and behavioural economist, engagingly describes a range of experiments he and his colleagues has performed (mostly on undergraduate students, in the time-honoured experimental psychology manner) to unpick a wide range patterns of irrationality. He looks at the over-strong lure of free items, how we overvalue our possessions, how keeping options open can be a mistake, why shops will often display an expensive option they don’t expect to sell, why we are happy to do things for free we wouldn’t do if paid for, how more expensive items are more effective than identical cheaper ones, how dishonesty varies when cash is involved, how some people choose second best, and more.
I found the chapter on free work versus paid work interesting, the difference being between social norms and market norms. The world is moving us towards the latter, seemingly to the detriment of enjoyment. Similarly the chapter on honesty highlights how people are more honest when cash is involved: while taking a pencil from work is barely noticed, taking the equivalent value in cash would be beyond the pale. Yet we are moving towards a cashless world, maybe to the detriment of honesty?
This is a good read, with the experiments clearly described, and the context and consequences well explained. I am not entirely convinced that the experimental situations, with their small values and low consequences, can be safely extrapolated to larger scale cases, but they are very illuminating. Several of the examples will be useful to help avoid faulty reasoning in certain cases. (Although I already order what I want from the menu, whether or not someone else in the party has previously ordered the same.)

In one of the amazing studies in the book he shows for instance that the way we ‘frame’ something (p. 41) often determines how others are going to take it (remember Tom Sawyer and how he got his friends to paint that wall? For classroom management purposes, this is crucial; if we introduce activities saying ‘Now, this may hurt a little...’ chances are students are going to feel the pain!)
This leads to the hugely important subject – expectations: quick Q: would you like a beer with a drop of balsamic vinegar in it? (p. 159) A: It depends on whether you know it in advance or not! If you do, chances are you are going to dislike it. Expectations colour perceptions. How many times has this prejudiced us against certain students?
Ariely’s interests range from beverages to education. Here is another Q for you: which students have better results: those who are free to choose their own deadlines, or those where the professor ‘democratically’ decides for everyone? Incredibly, it is the latter! (p. 115) This finding may go against our cherished beliefs, but in fact it ties in very smoothly with notions of ‘ego depletion’ (Baumeister). The very process of deciding exhausts us, with the result that we are both more stressed and produce poorer-quality work.
Ariely writes in the simple, effortless and straightforward style that you find among people with a real command of their subject. Rather than bombarding the reader with studies and facts, he goes through each experiment in detail, ensuring that the reader manages to grasp the key concept in all its fine details. He then goes on to consider the possible applications of the findings in various fields of life – not just work. Yet what I like best about this book is that he also uses examples from his own life – sometimes funny, sometimes poignant.
OK – now here is one last idea from the book: a little ‘conjuring trick’ for shamelessly manipulating students (pp 9 – 10): You give them a choice for homework: they can read a long article or they can write a short essay. But you really want them to write that essay. Piece of cake – you give them a third option; writing an even longer text! Now, nobody is going to choose that, right? Yes, but because the short essay is better than the long one, students also assume it’s preferable to the article too! Brilliant!! :-)


Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 14, 2016
In one of the amazing studies in the book he shows for instance that the way we ‘frame’ something (p. 41) often determines how others are going to take it (remember Tom Sawyer and how he got his friends to paint that wall? For classroom management purposes, this is crucial; if we introduce activities saying ‘Now, this may hurt a little...’ chances are students are going to feel the pain!)
This leads to the hugely important subject – expectations: quick Q: would you like a beer with a drop of balsamic vinegar in it? (p. 159) A: It depends on whether you know it in advance or not! If you do, chances are you are going to dislike it. Expectations colour perceptions. How many times has this prejudiced us against certain students?
Ariely’s interests range from beverages to education. Here is another Q for you: which students have better results: those who are free to choose their own deadlines, or those where the professor ‘democratically’ decides for everyone? Incredibly, it is the latter! (p. 115) This finding may go against our cherished beliefs, but in fact it ties in very smoothly with notions of ‘ego depletion’ (Baumeister). The very process of deciding exhausts us, with the result that we are both more stressed and produce poorer-quality work.
Ariely writes in the simple, effortless and straightforward style that you find among people with a real command of their subject. Rather than bombarding the reader with studies and facts, he goes through each experiment in detail, ensuring that the reader manages to grasp the key concept in all its fine details. He then goes on to consider the possible applications of the findings in various fields of life – not just work. Yet what I like best about this book is that he also uses examples from his own life – sometimes funny, sometimes poignant.
OK – now here is one last idea from the book: a little ‘conjuring trick’ for shamelessly manipulating students (pp 9 – 10): You give them a choice for homework: they can read a long article or they can write a short essay. But you really want them to write that essay. Piece of cake – you give them a third option; writing an even longer text! Now, nobody is going to choose that, right? Yes, but because the short essay is better than the long one, students also assume it’s preferable to the article too! Brilliant!! :-)


NOTE: Please do not remove your head and look inside for comparative purposes.
In all seriousness, this book blew me away, by demonstrating aspects of human behaviour which is hard-wired into us. You will be shocked - I was - by just how easy we can be manipulated, and you'll be nodding along as you recognise all the times when you've fallen foul of these precise conditions. Even wondered why it takes you an hour to decide between brands of painkillers, when one is cheaper but the other is on special...? If you have, then man up and stick a plaster on it. But also, read this book, because it will tell you exactly why you find it so damn difficult to make that choice. It won't help you the next time you've got a pounding headache and Nurofen is half-off but still twice the price of ADSA's own bran paracetamol, but at least then you'll understand. And if your head explodes, and covers passers-by in pinky, drippy bits, try and have a look before you expire - I reckon it'll look just like this cover.
