Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

After listening to This Week In Tech earlier, they spoke about a book called Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely. It is a very interesting book on human behaviour, which is very hard to put down once you start reading it. I decided to pick it up.

The book discusses the irrational behaviour that people express when faced with certain decisions or statements. The key part is “predictable”, since the subjects in his experiments exert the same predictable results each time a theory is tested.

My goal, by the end of this book, is to help you fundamentally rethink what makes you and the people around you tick. I hope to lead you there by presenting a wide range of scientific experiments, findings, and anecdotes that are in many cases quite amusing. Once you see how systematic certain mistakes are–how we repeat them again and again–I think you will begin to learn how to avoid some of them.

For instance, imagine that you were to buy a new TV for a certain price. At the store you see the future Mrs TV, but next to it is another similar TV. The other TV is possibly not quite as good, but it comes with a FREE DVD player. Most people would in this case choose the other TV, since it seems that you are getting the DVD player for FREE. So, does free cost? For an analysis of this and other phenomena, pick this book up and decide for yourself.

The contents of the book is as follows:

• Introduction: How an Injury Led Me to Irrationality
• Chapter 1: The Truth about Relativity
• Chapter 2: The Fallacy of Supply and Demand
• Chapter 3: The Cost of Zero
• Chapter 4: The Cost of Social Norms
• Chapter 5: The Influence of Arousal
• Chapter 6: The Problem of Procrastination and Self- Control
• Chapter 7: The High Price of Ownership

After reading the book, thinking about the results of Ariely’s experiments, it is not hard to draw the conclusion that hidden forces exist in our market place to force us to make our buying habits predictable decisions. The theory does however not stop there, but can be applied to most aspects of life that from a first glance may seem like rational decisions are being made.

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