{"id":20613,"date":"2022-08-21T10:18:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T14:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=20613"},"modified":"2022-08-21T10:18:24","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T14:18:24","slug":"predictably-irrational-the-hidden-forces-that-shape-our-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20613","title":{"rendered":"Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions<\/em><\/a> (2009) Dan Ariely <\/p>\n

<\/a>I’ll be honest–I have listened to this book several times. Unfortunately, because it’s non fiction, I’d get distracted and so the ends of chapters and the end of the book? (I retained next to nothing.) (Why the ends of chapters? Because when I’d stop and restart, I’d go to the beginning of my current chapter because I didn’t quite remember the end of the previous chapter. Rinse. Repeat.)<\/p>\n

So I decided to finally read the book, because there is a lot here that I think is incredibly important, and I really wanted to understand.<\/p>\n

The premise of the book is that–contrary to our own beliefs about ourselves–we are irrational creatures. We quite often fail to do things that are in our own best interests. However, our irrationality is predictable–researchers can guess with a high degree of accuracy just how illogically we will act.<\/p>\n

The reason this is important is because it affects absolutely everything in our lifes.<\/p>\n

Consider the price we are willing to pay for an item.<\/p>\n

high-priced entr\u00e9es on the menu boost revenue for the restaurant\u2014 even if no one buys them. Why? Because even though people generally won\u2019t buy the most expensive dish on the menu, they will order the second most expensive dish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why we make the choices we do.<\/p>\n

if you want to go bar-hopping, you should consider taking along someone who looks similar to you but who is slightly less attractive than you are. Because of the relative nature of evaluations, others would perceive you not only as cuter than your decoy, but also as better-looking than other people in the bar.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How we believe we are being rational, but are ruled by our passions–far more than we could believe we might be.<\/p>\n

every one of us, regardless of how \u201cgood\u201d we are, underpredicts the effect of passion on our behavior. In every case, the participants in our experiment got it wrong. Even the most brilliant and rational person, in the heat of passion, seems to be absolutely and completely divorced from the person he thought he was. Moreover, it is not just that people make wrong predictions about themselves\u2014 their predictions are wrong by a large margin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why we refuse to back down, even when we are wrong.<\/p>\n

Once we take ownership of an idea\u2014 whether it\u2019s about politics or sports\u2014 what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can\u2019t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology\u2014 rigid and unyielding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

our investment in our beliefs is much stronger than any affiliation to sport teams, and so we hold on to these beliefs tenaciously. Thus the likelihood of agreement about \u201cthe facts\u201d becomes smaller and smaller as personal investment in the problem grows.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even how the justice system treats criminals.<\/p>\n

In 2004, the total cost of all robberies in the United States was $ 525 million, and the average loss from a single robbery was about $ 1,300.19 These amounts are not very high, when we consider how much police, judicial, and corrections muscle is put into the capture and confinement of robbers\u2014 let alone the amount of newspaper and television coverage these kinds of crimes elicit. I\u2019m not suggesting that we go easy on career criminals, of course. They are thieves, and we must protect ourselves from their acts. <\/p>\n

But consider this: every year, employees\u2019 theft and fraud at the workplace are estimated at about $ 600 billion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We are not rational beings, and it behooves us to know and understand this.<\/p>\n

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books<\/p>\n

Rating: 8.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (2009) Dan Ariely I’ll be honest–I have listened to this book several times. Unfortunately, because it’s non fiction, I’d get distracted and so the ends of chapters and the end of the book? (I retained next to nothing.) (Why the ends of chapters? Because when I’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,292,4,41,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-5-10","category-ebook","category-non-fiction","category-reread","category-science-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-5mt","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":615,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/615","url_meta":{"origin":20613,"position":0},"title":"Spook","author":"Michelle","date":"July 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005) Mary Roach As much as I enjoyed Stiff, I found Spook disappointing. As a scientific look at life after death, excluding the last couple chapters, it read more as a debunking than a presentation. Of course that's partially because several chapters deal with things\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/non-fiction\/history"},"img":{"alt_text":"Spook","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/spook.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":707,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/707","url_meta":{"origin":20613,"position":1},"title":"The Shape of Mercy","author":"Michelle","date":"October 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Shape of Mercy (2008) Susan Meissner I received The Shape of Mercy to review, and when I read the first couple chapters I had a sinking feeling--I don't typically like books about young women finding themselves. But I knew I'd be getting a sub story about a young Puritan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/shape_of_mercy.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1018,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1018","url_meta":{"origin":20613,"position":2},"title":"The Planets","author":"Michelle","date":"March 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Planets (2005) Dava Sobel Several years ago I read and thoroughly enjoyed Galileo's Daughter, and when I found The Planets in paperback and a 4-for-3 sale, I decided to pick it up. The Planets looks at--unsurprisingly--the planets. Including (since it was published in 2005) Pluto. Although as a whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/non-fiction\/history"},"img":{"alt_text":"planets","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/planets.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":170,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/170","url_meta":{"origin":20613,"position":3},"title":"Sorcery & Cecelia -OR- The Enchanted Chocolate Pot","author":"Michelle","date":"December 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorcery & Cecelia -OR- The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (1988) Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer After putting down a book that looked promising but I found only annoying after the first several chapters, I picked up Sorcery & Cecelia, which I'd put on my wish list because I thought it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Sorcery-and-Cecelia.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/403","url_meta":{"origin":20613,"position":4},"title":"Stiff","author":"Michelle","date":"July 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003) Mary Roach I was wandering the bookstore and Stiff was sitting on one of the display tables, one of the \"Recommended Summer Reading\" tables or something like that. I'd heard a review or interview or something like that when it first came\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":279,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/279","url_meta":{"origin":20613,"position":5},"title":"Master and Commander","author":"Michelle","date":"July 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Master and Commander (1970) Patrick O'Brian This book ended up taking me several months to read. I started it sometime during the winter, would read a couple of pages or chapters, then I'd pick up another book and forget about this one for awhile. That doesn't mean I didn't like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"Master and Commander","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.klishis.com\/Books\/images\/master_commander.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}