Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational. The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

Many are convinced that man is a rational being who acts in a way that is beneficial to him. For a long time this was an unshakable postulate of economic theory until it was tested in practice. And as numerous experiments have shown, people are not rational at all. But the most surprising thing is not even this, but the fact that, as Dan Ariely proves in his bestseller, our irrational behavior is predictable. Konstantin Smygin, founder of the service for key ideas from business literature MakeRight.ru, shared with Insider.pro readers key ideas from Dan Ariely’s book “Predictable Irrationality.”

What is this book about?

Our psychology is fraught with many mysteries. It's amazing how irrational we sometimes behave. What’s even more surprising is that our irrationality is predictable and operates according to its own laws.

In his best-selling book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely talks about the systemic failures of human behavior and how the understanding of the irrationality of human behavior has upended the once immutable tenets of economic theory, which viewed people as rational individuals. Dan Ariely explores phenomena related to the relatively new field of behavioral economics.

In classical economics, all people are assumed to be rational agents and act accordingly. That is, they compare all possible options and choose the best one. If an individual makes a mistake, market forces quickly correct it.

These assumptions about rational behavior allowed economists to make far-reaching conclusions about taxation, government regulation, health care, and pricing. But recent studies of human behavior fundamentally refute this approach.

Let's look at the main ideas from Dan Ariely's book that confirm our irrationality and its predictability.

Idea No. 1. We learn everything by comparison

subscription to the online version for $59,
print subscription for $125
$125 print and online subscription

The latter two options cost the same, but the one that offers both subscription versions seems like a better deal. This is not a mistake at all - it is an example of intentional manipulation with the goal of making a potential subscriber skip the first option and pay attention to the more expensive one.

What is the essence of this technique? It is based on the psychological characteristics of a person - we can evaluate the advantage of any option only by comparing it with others. We cannot assess the absolute value of this or that thing, but only the relative one.

This is how our thinking works - we always look at things and perceive them taking into account their context and connections with other things.

Idea No. 2. What does the law of supply and demand not take into account?

World-renowned naturalist Konrad Lorenz demonstrated that newborn goslings become attached to the first moving object they see, be it a person, a dog or a mechanical toy. This effect was called imprinting. We also tend to unconsciously cling to meanings that are already familiar to us - in other words, to “set anchors.” This feature, called the “anchoring effect,” also appears in relation to prices.

Dan Ariely tells the story of businessman Assael, who began introducing black pearls to the market in the mid-20th century. At first, no one was interested in his proposal. But a year later, Assael turned to a jewelry specialist, who put black pearls in his window, charging a huge price for them. As a result, black pearls were worn by movie stars and rich divas, and they became synonymous with luxury. The cost of black pearls was “tied” to a reference point in the form of the most luxurious precious stones in the world, and he became very highly valued.

The author makes a reservation: price tags by themselves do not yet become anchors. The imprinting effect occurs when we think about buying a product. The price range may vary, but we always compare them with what we initially fixed.

Idea #3: How do anchors become a long-term habit?

It's no secret that people tend to exhibit herd behavior. But Dan Ariely talks about another remarkable effect - "spontaneous herding instinct." Its essence is that a person believes that an object is good or bad based on how he perceived it based on previous experience.

For example, you are used to drinking coffee in the same cafe every morning. But one day we decided to go to Starbucks and were unpleasantly surprised by the prices. Still, you decided to try local espresso, although it seemed unreasonably expensive to you. The next day you go to Starbucks again.

So you have re-tied your anchor. How did this happen? Due to the emotional factor, Starbucks evokes completely different feelings in visitors than ordinary cafes, and this is enough to abandon the old “price” anchor.

Idea No. 4. Economists' mistake

Idea No. 5. Free cheese in a mousetrap

Why are people so greedy for free things? Dan Ariely suggests asking yourself a question: would you buy a product you don’t need if the price for it dropped from 30 to 10 rubles? Maybe. Would you take it if they offered it to you for free? For sure.

How do we understand the irrational desire for free goods that we would otherwise ignore?

This happens due to another psychological feature of ours - a person is afraid of losses. When we pay for something, we always have an underlying fear of making the wrong decision, but when we get something for free, the fear is not the right decision disappears.

Many successful marketing campaigns take advantage of our craving for free cheese. So, we may be offered free shipping when you buy multiple items instead of one, and this works well even if you only need one item.

Idea #6: How much is friendship worth?

If, after dinner with a relative, you offer him money for food and service, he will most likely be offended. Why? There is an opinion that we live in two worlds. In one, market norms predominate, and in the other, social norms. It is important to separate these norms, because if they get confused somewhere, then good friendly or family relationships will be spoiled.

Experiments show that when we begin to reason in the spirit of social norms, market norms recede into the background.

Interestingly, gifts are not subject to this rule - they allow you to remain within the framework of social norms without switching to market norms. But disclosing the value of the gift will bring you back within the bounds of market norms.

Why is it important to know about the existence of these two worlds? If you offer someone money to do a job, then your relationship will be perceived as market-based, and if you offer too little reward, you will not be able to motivate people. On the other hand, people may be more willing to do this work for you for free or as a gift.

To illustrate this principle, the author talks about a famous case. One kindergarten wanted to solve the problem of parents being late for their children by introducing a system of monetary fines. However, this measure not only did not have the expected effect, but also had the opposite effect. The fact is that parents began to perceive their obligations towards kindergarten within the framework of market norms, paying fines relieved them of the feeling of guilt for being late.

Idea No. 7. Mr. Hyde in each of us

Many people believe that they are fully self-aware and know what they are and are not capable of. But experiments prove that people simply underestimate their reactions.

In a calm state and in an excited state, we answer the same questions in completely different ways.

Dan Ariely draws an analogy with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who live in every person.

Mr. Hyde can completely take over us, and in such situations we need to understand that we will regret our actions in this state.

Idea No. 8. Why do we put off important things until later?

We are gripped by a consumption boom. We cannot refuse ourselves a purchase and often live on credit. We can’t save, we give in to impulses, we follow short-term desires and we can’t achieve long-term goals. Many people are familiar with procrastination in doing the most important things. We put them off until the last minute, and then we reproach ourselves for realizing it too late, promising ourselves that next time... But next time the same thing happens.

As we already know, there are two sides to us: Dr. Jekyll - the rational one - and Mr. Hyde - the impulsive one. When we make promises to ourselves and set goals, we do so in a rational state. But then our emotions take over. So we decide to eat another piece of cake and go on a diet tomorrow...

Also, given the fact that we understand the imperfection of our self-control, we can act on this understanding - study in the company of motivated friends or ask to put money aside for a deposit with our employer.

Idea No. 9. Emotions and things

Thanks to the research of Daniel Kahneman (winner Nobel Prize in economics) and other scientists, we know that a person who owns something values it much more expensive than other people.

Why is this happening? Dan Ariely identifies three reasons:

We fall in love with what we own. We “charge” each of our items with certain emotions.
We focus on what we will lose if we give up the item, rather than on what we can gain (for example, money from a sale or the empty space that was occupied by old furniture).
We believe that other people look at the deal the same way we do.

Idea #10: We get what we expect.

You may have been convinced more than once that different people evaluate the same event differently. Why are there so many interpretations of the same questions?

The fact is that we are biased and biased, and we are influenced by our expectations. Known fact- if you tell people that food will be tasteless, they will perceive it as such. A beautiful design cafe, an impressive display of dishes or their colorful descriptions in the menu can positively affect the perception of the taste of food.

On the other hand, we need stereotypes simply because without them it would be extremely difficult for us to understand the huge flow of information in the world. However, stereotypes have a very strong influence on us. For example, if women are asked to indicate their gender before a math test, they perform noticeably worse on the test. It turns out that this question revives a stereotype in their mind, which makes them show worse results in reality.

Idea No. 11. Honesty as an illusion

Statistics say: unlawful actions of employees of US companies annually cause their employers losses in the amount of $600 billion.

Recalling the infamous Enron company, the author asks why there is so much less condemnation in society of crimes committed by white collar criminals, although they can cause much more damage in one day than a notorious swindler can do in a lifetime? Dan Ariely explains this by saying that there are two types of dishonesty. The first option is ordinary fraud or theft - from the cash register, from pockets, from apartments. The second option is what people do who do not consider themselves thieves - for example, they can take robes or towels from a hotel or a pen from a bank.

The author conducted an experiment with students from the Harvard MBA school, whose graduates occupy the highest positions, to detect such dishonesty when rigging answers to a series of questions. The experiment revealed the dishonesty of many students, however, interestingly, when the experiment was modified, it turned out that the students did not become more dishonest, even if they had the opportunity to completely destroy all the evidence. Even if there is no chance of being caught, we are still not completely dishonest.

Where does our desire for honesty come from? The author finds an explanation in Freud's theory - by doing good deeds, we strengthen our superego and stimulate the activity of areas of the brain that are responsible for reward. However, usually people treat “large-scale” actions this way - and at the same time, without a twinge of conscience, they appropriate someone else’s hand.

How can we solve the problem of dishonesty? Students stopped falsifying their answers to a test when they were asked to remember the 10 Commandments before starting the test. Other experiments have also confirmed that reminders moral principles completely cancels the deception.

Key ideas of the book

Recent research into human behavior fundamentally challenges classical economics' assumptions about human rationality. We are not rational individuals. We are irrational. And, besides, our irrational behavior works in accordance with certain mechanisms and is therefore predictable.
Supply and demand are not independent forces, they are connected to our internal “anchors”.
We continue to stick to certain decisions that we thought were best in the past, but that may not make sense now.
Regardless of a person’s personal qualities, everyone underestimates their behavior in a state of passion.
We don't like to be deprived of opportunities, even if we don't take advantage of them. We find it very difficult to refuse alternatives, and this makes us vulnerable.
We live in two worlds - the world of social norms and the world of market norms. And mixing them is fraught with problems.
We're all suckers for free stuff. This causes us to act contrary to our true needs and desires.
The way out of the traps of our thinking lies in understanding our irrationality and becoming more aware.

It would seem that so many books on psychology have been published that it is impossible to count them. Almost every second person considers himself an excellent psychologist and gives advice: how to cope with stress, how to find happiness, why am I unlucky, or how thinking affects our perception. And some also write books about it.

On the one hand, when there is a choice, it’s good, but on the other hand, when there are so many options, how to choose? There is only one thing left to do, read. To know whether a book is good or not, you need to read it. You can look through a huge number of reviews and reviews about a particular book, but these will be other people's opinions, not yours.

In one of the articles I saw a link to Dan Ariely’s book “Predictably Irrational.” I Googled the author and his book (I think most of us do this), received minimal information and decided to read it. And I was right. I really liked the book. The first thing that catches your eye is the author’s living language.

Since Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics and teaches at Duke University (North Carolina, USA), he has an excellent opportunity to conduct experiments on his students (with their consent, of course). Almost all experiments offer monetary rewards, which further stimulates interest in people's economic behavior.

For example, in his book the author touches on issues such as: Why, without paying anything, do we pay too much? Why are we so happy to do something, but not when we get paid for it? Why do we overestimate what we have? Why don't we always behave honestly and what can be done about it? Intriguing, isn't it?

Of even greater interest is the life story of Ariel himself, to which he refers more than once to consolidate certain conclusions. It was thanks to (although thanks is not a very appropriate word in this context) an accident that happened to him in high school that this book was born. And in general, Ariely notes that he began studying psychology and human behavior, largely because of that incident and subsequent events.

And the following happened to him: while preparing “signal lights” (a traditional youth event in Israel), Dan received burns to 70% of the surface of his body (third degree). Painful years of rehabilitation followed (about 10 years in total). But the story doesn't end there either. Three weeks after the accident, somehow in the hospital Dan was infected with hepatitis C, which was still unexplored at that time. Treatment began only a few years later, when the virus was discovered. As a result, victory over the disease was won, but it cost Dan a lot of effort (the book describes this in detail).

Reading the book, you begin to admire the courage of this man. Sometimes it’s hard to understand how one can survive something like this and still look at the world positively.

In addition to the issues of people's irrational behavior and their tendency to cheat a little (when there is such an opportunity), Ariely says that people are in many ways stronger than they think.

I would also like to note the fact that almost all experiments were carried out with American students. But Ariely doesn’t miss this moment either. Since he himself was interested in finding out whether people’s behavior really depends on their nationality, he nevertheless conducted several experiments in India, China and some European countries. It turned out that the results were very similar to the American ones. There are definitely some features associated with place of residence, nationality and culture, but in the end people still remain people, no matter what country they live in.

I can’t say that after reading the book your world will turn upside down or you will start living differently, but it will definitely make you think about some things in your daily life.

Dan Ariely What motivates us to work?

This book is about what actually determines the economic behavior of each of us and shapes the global economy as a whole. It's about irrationality. About hidden motives, attitudes and impulses that force us (as well as our colleagues, clients and partners) to act according to very specific, albeit unconscious, models, sometimes performing completely illogical actions.

Why are we more likely to be helped by a five-dollar pill than by a five-cent pill?
Why do we act more honestly when dealing with cash?
Why does each of us from time to time excitedly buy things that are actually completely unnecessary?

Why are we better at working for free than for modest remuneration?
If we can understand the motives of our actions - and this book will be of significant help here - this will certainly have a beneficial effect on our future behavior. Understanding your own imperfections provides many practical benefits. See for yourself!

Introduction

How an accident led me to the exploration of irrationality described in this book

Many people consider my view of the world unusual and often tell me about it. My twenty years as a researcher have brought me great pleasure from learning about what actually influences our everyday decisions (rather than what we think influences them).

Do you know why we so often promise ourselves to go on a diet, but immediately forget about it when a delicious dessert appears in our field of vision?

Do you know why we excitedly buy things that we don't actually need?

Do you know why we continue to complain of a headache after taking a one-cent aspirin, but get instant relief when we swallow a 50-cent aspirin?

Do you know why people who are asked to recite the Ten Commandments out loud tend to behave more honestly (at least immediately after they are spoken)? Or why company codes of conduct actually reduce employee dishonesty?

After reading the book, you will learn the answers to these and many other questions that affect your personal and business life, as well as your attitude towards the world around you. For example, knowing the answer to the question about aspirin will affect not only what medications you buy for yourself next time. This question relates to a critical issue in our society: the cost and effectiveness of health insurance. The Ten Commandments' impact on team climate could prevent large-scale Enron-style fraud. And understanding the reasons for voracious eating influences many of the impulsive decisions we make every day (for example, those that prevent us from saving enough money for a rainy day).

The purpose of this book is to help you reconsider the fundamentals of how you structure your life. I hope to guide you along this path, and I will be assisted by many scientific experiments, discoveries and anecdotes - interesting and unexpected. Once you understand how you make systemic mistakes - repeating them over and over again - you will learn to avoid them (at least I hope so).

I'll tell you about my curious, practical, funny, and sometimes delicious exploration of many areas of life - nutrition, shopping, love, money, procrastination and procrastination, honesty. But before that, I think it is important to explain to you the reasons for my unorthodox view of the world, which led to this book. They were quite tragic - it all started with a disaster I had many years ago, and there is nothing funny about this story.

In a few seconds of an ordinary evening, my whole life, the life of an ordinary eighteen-year-old young resident of Israel, changed. A flash of magnesium, used to illuminate the battlefield at night, left 70 percent of my body covered in third-degree burns.

I spent the next three years in the hospital, wrapped in bandages, and only occasionally appeared in public, wearing a tight synthetic suit and a mask over my face. I resembled an evil parody of Spider-Man. Unable to participate in the normal lives of my friends and family, I felt disconnected from society. For this reason, I began to reflect on what had once been my life. As an observer from another culture (or even from another planet), I began to analyze the reasons for this or that behavior - both mine and those around me. I wondered why I fell in love with one girl and not another, why my new life was built according to rules convenient for doctors, and not for myself, why I preferred climbing to studying history, or why I was so attentive to the opinions of other people. But most of all, I thought about what motivates people in life and makes us all behave in certain ways.

During the years I spent in the hospital, I encountered different types pain and could think about it for long periods between operations. At first, most of the pain was associated with the daily bathing procedure, during which I was immersed in a disinfectant solution, bandages were removed, and along with them, dead skin particles. When the body is covered with skin, the effect of this solution is almost not felt, and the bandages are removed without much effort. However, if there is no skin on the body (as was the case in my case due to multiple burns), disinfectants burn unbearably, bandages stick to the meat, and their removal (read tearing off) leads to terrible, indescribable and incomparable pain .

While in the burn unit, I often spoke with the nurses who performed the procedure. I wanted to understand why my treatment was going this way. The nurses usually took the end of the bandage and tore it off as quickly as possible, the pain being intense but immediate; however, this process continued for about an hour - until they removed the last bandage. After that, I was covered with a layer of ointment and new bandages. The next day everything happened again.

I quickly realized that the nurses thought it was better for the patient if the bandage came off quickly - if they did it gradually, the pain would be just as bad, but it would last much longer. Nurses also did not see a difference between the two possible methods; they could start with the most painful areas and work their way to less painful areas, or do the opposite.

As someone who has personally experienced what it is like to remove bandages, I could not agree with them (especially since their opinion has never been tested using scientific methods). In addition, their theories did not take into account the fear of treatment that patients experience and how difficult it is to cope with pain, and did not take into account the surprise associated with the onset and end of pain. The nurses did not realize how much more comforting it would be for patients to know that the pain would decrease rather than increase as the procedure progressed. However, my helpless state gave me no opportunity to influence how I was treated.

As soon as I had the opportunity to leave the hospital for a long time (although I had to come for minor operations and examinations for another five years), I entered Tel Aviv University.

Conducting such tests was not always possible, but the idea that science is an empirical exercise in which anyone (even a novice student like me) can come up with an alternative theory and then try to test it was an eye-opener for me. new world. On one of my visits to Professor Frank's office, I told him about my hypothesis that could explain how a certain stage of an epileptic disease develops, and suggested that I test my idea on rats.

The professor liked my idea, and for the next three months I performed operations on five dozen rats. I implanted catheters into their spinal cords and then injected them with various substances that increased or decreased the frequency of epileptic seizures. At the same time, I had a significant problem: due to the consequences of the accident, it was difficult for me to move my hands, which prevented me from performing surgical operations on rats. Luckily for me, my best friend Ron Weisberg (an ardent vegetarian and pet lover) agreed to spend a few weekends in the laboratory with me and help me with the procedures. If there are real tests for friendship, this was one of them.

In the end, the theory turned out to be false, but this did not affect my level of enthusiasm. Thanks to her, I was able to learn something, and even if the theory itself turned out to be wrong, I was now sure of it. I often wondered how things worked. Understanding that science provides people with all the capabilities and tools necessary to study any object of interest led me to a deeper study of human behavior.

With powerful new tools at my fingertips, I decided to look into how we humans relate to pain. For obvious reasons, I began my research by studying the procedure of ablution, during which painful activities continue for a long time. Is it possible to reduce the level of pain of such procedures? Over the next years, I was able to conduct a number of laboratory experiments - on myself, on friends and on volunteers. To get answers to my questions, I used various sources of pain: heat, cold, pressure, loud noises, and even psychological distress due to losing money in the stock market.

By the time my experiments came to an end, I realized that the nurses in the burn unit were kind people(perhaps with the exception of one of them). They had considerable experience in soaking bandages and then removing them, but even with years of experience behind them, they had no idea how to make this procedure less painful for patients. I knew them all personally and understood that such behavior was not caused by malice, stupidity or ignorance. Rather, they were victims of their distorted perception of the pain that their patients experienced - and it was not corrected either with age or with experience.

For these reasons, I was understandably nervous when I had the opportunity to return to the burn unit and report the results of my research. I hoped they would help make bandage removal easier for other patients. “It appears,” I told the doctors and nurses, “that people feel less pain when medical procedures are performed at a lower intensity but over a longer period of time.” In other words, if the nurses did not remove the bandages as quickly as usual, I, as a patient, would suffer less.

They were sincerely amazed by my conclusions. I was surprised by the response of my favorite nurse named Etty. She admitted that hospital staff often wondered why procedures were performed the way they were. In her opinion, working methods needed to be changed. However, she also noted that the psychological pain that nurses experience when hearing their patients scream must also be taken into account; they tear off the bandages so quickly in order to quickly end their own suffering. At the moment when she uttered these words, an expression of anguish could be seen on the faces of the other nurses - they recalled their experiences associated with these painful moments. In the end we all agreed that the procedure needed to be changed. Some nurses followed my recommendations.

As far as I know, the results of my research never led to a large-scale change in the existing procedure, but this episode made a strong impression on me. If nurses, with all their experience, did not understand how the patients they cared for were feeling, it follows that other people tend not to understand the consequences of their behavior, as a result of which they constantly make the wrong decisions. I decided to expand the scope of my research and look at all the ways people make the same mistakes over and over without the opportunity to learn from experience.

This book is about a journey into the world of irrationality that is so familiar to us. My research is closely related to the scientific field called behavioral economics or methods of judgment and decision making.

Behavioral economics is a new scientific discipline that links economics and psychology. My research examined issues ranging from failure to save enough for retirement to failure to think clearly when sexually aroused.

I tried to understand not only behavior, but also the decision-making processes behind such behavior - yours, mine, anyone else's. Before I continue, let me briefly explain what behavioral economics is and how it differs from classical economics. Let's start with a quote from Shakespeare.

What a masterful creature man is! How noble in mind! How limitless in his abilities, appearances and movements! How precise and wonderful in action! How he resembles an angel in his deep comprehension! How he looks like some kind of god! The beauty of the universe! The crown of all living things!

This quote represents the quintessence of the vision of human nature, which is largely shared by economists, arbiters of the destinies of various countries, and lay people - completely ordinary people. Of course, in many respects this vision is correct. Our bodies and minds are capable of incredible things. We can see a ball flying from afar, instantly calculate its trajectory and speed, and then move in space and raise our hands to successfully grab it. We are able to easily learn new languages, especially as children. We can learn to play chess masterfully. We can accurately recognize thousands of faces. We are capable of creating musical and literary works, technical masterpieces, brilliant paintings- this list is endless.

Shakespeare was not alone in his admiration for human reason. In fact, each of us thinks of ourselves in roughly the same terms as above (though we believe that other people—our neighbors, spouses, and bosses—often do not live up to this high standard).

Similar ideas about people as perfect beings are reflected in economics. The key idea of economics - rationality - forms the basis of many economic theories, forecasts and recommendations.

From this point of view, we are all economists (to the extent that each of us believes in human rationality). I am not implying that we can, by intuition alone, construct a complex game theory model or understand the generalized axiom of revealed preference. Rather, I mean that we in general tend to have certain beliefs about human nature on which economic theory is built. When I talk about a rational economic model in this book, I mean a basic assumption that many economists and people in general make. It's about a simple and attractive idea: each of us is capable of making the right decisions in our favor.

While we do have reason to be in awe of people's capabilities, there is a significant difference between feeling deep admiration and assuming that our rational thinking abilities are perfect. This book is dedicated to human irrationality - in other words, the distance that separates us from perfection. I believe that acknowledging our imperfections is the key to understanding ourselves and can give us many practical benefits. Understanding irrationality is important for our everyday actions and decisions, as well as for understanding how we structure the environment around us and manage the alternatives it offers.

I have come to the conclusion that we are predictably irrational - in other words, our irrationality is expressed in the same way over and over again. Whether we are consumers, business people, or politicians, understanding our predictable irrationality becomes a launching pad for improving our decision-making processes and changing our lives for the better.

This led me to “unravel” (in Shakespearean words) the dilemma between classical and behavioral economics. In classical economics, the assumption that we are all rational agents means that in our daily lives we compare all the alternatives that arise and then choose the best one for ourselves. But what happens when we make a mistake and do something irrational? For such cases, traditional economics has its own answer: “market forces” descend upon us, again directing us to the correct and rational path. It is worth noting that, guided by such assumptions, many generations of economists, starting with Adam Smith, were able to formulate far-reaching conclusions on many issues - from the organization of taxation and the health care system to the problems of pricing products and services.

However, as you will see as you read, we are much further from rationality than classical economic theory suggests. Moreover, our irrational behavior is not random or meaningless.

It is systematic and (because we repeat it again and again) predictable. So maybe we should put aside the standards of economic theory and move away from naive psychology (which is often unable to identify the causes of what is happening, conduct introspection, and most importantly, does not allow empirical study)? This is where behavioral economics comes in, and this book aims to help address this critical challenge.

In each of the chapters of the book, I talk about experiments that I conducted over a number of years together with my excellent colleagues (I give their short biographies at the end of the book).

Why do I think these experiments are so important? Life is a complex thing: we are simultaneously influenced by many forces, and we are not able to determine what each of them does to us. For social scientists, experiments act as microscopes. They make it possible to break down human behavior in a given situation into a sequence of elements, identify individual forces, and study in detail the impact of each of them. They give us the opportunity to directly and unambiguously assess what it is that makes us behave in one way or another.

Another important thing is connected with experiments. If the conclusions obtained from an experiment are valid only within a limited environment, then their value is relatively small. Instead, I would like you to think of experiments as illustrations of a general principle that allows us to understand in detail how we think and make decisions - not only in the conditions of a particular experiment, but also (by extrapolation) in many situations in life.

Therefore, in each chapter I attempted to extrapolate my findings to other situations and tried to describe the possible consequences for life, business and social order. Of course, I did not talk about all possible consequences.

To get the most out of my book, and the study of social science in general, you should spend some time thinking about how the principles of human behavior discovered in experiments apply to yours. own life. I encourage you to pause after reading each chapter and think about whether the principle revealed in each experiment makes your life better or worse. More importantly, you can imagine what you yourself could do differently now that you have a better understanding of human nature. And this will be the most interesting result of your reading.

And now we are going on a journey.

TONigga I read a long time ago. Some things from it have already been tested and implemented by me. Now, having read all of Ariel's books, it is obviously necessary to fully pay tribute to them - to say why they are good.

Socrates is credited with the following: “life without meaning is not worth living.” So, Ariely’s books help to increase the degree of meaningfulness of our existence, including in business. This is their main merit. What exactly is in this book? Let's look at the chapters (the names are mine, the author has others), I will not show everything, but what is useful (so it seemed to me, because I am irrational :).

Chapter 1. Make context. Most people don't know what they really need until they see things in context.

Ebbinghaus illusion. Which black circle is bigger? The one surrounded by small circles or the one surrounded by large ones?

We, like the pilot of a plane landing in the dark, want to see the lights of the runway. Hence the success of the lures that companies often throw at us in the form of anchors, in relation to which a high-margin and “expensive” product becomes preferred by the buyer. Girls take advantage of this when they take friends with them to a party who are a little scarier than themselves :)

Chapter 2. Anchors, anchors. Learn to create anchors that determine people's future behavior. First impressions are very important! For example, how to get people to buy something that was not sold before? Place such a product among the “diamonds”, things that are difficult for an ordinary person to obtain. Now do you understand the meaning of the saying “You meet someone by their clothes...”?

The flip side is that we ourselves determine our habits and destiny with our initial decisions. We form our values that determine our lives. We often “get in line behind ourselves,” increasing its length, i.e. attachment to something. This is what determines the success of Starbucks, which has created a unique atmosphere in its coffee shops, which has become a new “anchor” for coffee lovers.

One day I was told some wisdom. Like, fate is a thread connecting a person with God. As they pull in heaven, so a person will do. But the thread has two ends! And a person is able to pull his end in the same way... In business it’s similar: supply and demand turn out to be interdependent! By changing anchors and creating new values, you can change the market preferences of consumers. Do you have bad sales? This is primarily an opportunity, not a tragedy. Change yourself, change the impressions (consumer experience) of the Clients and everything will work out. Yes, and it’s better to be in the trend of changes occurring in other markets, this can speed up the turn of consumers in your direction. You won’t find clear answers on how to make yourself the king of the market in the book, but it will make you think, and just like that, a new famous brand will be born.

Chapter 3. Source of irrational excitement.“Free” - there is so much in this sound... No one can resist the powerful gravitational force of the free. Tell for free and the disadvantages of the product will disappear, this will attract a crowd and make your company attractive.

Chapter 4. Time and patience. People are social, so they transfer their expectations to business. Business, huh? Are you still afraid to do good for free without demanding anything in return? But people will repay their “debt” to you over time. This applies to any interested party of the business: Consumers, Employees, etc.

Mix, but do not stir: do not try to abruptly replace market norms (tough, rational, money is involved) with social norms (warm, comfortable, outside commodity-money relations). In this case, the market will always win. Here's a real example. Therefore, for example, as soon as you begin to punish not with words, but with rubles, your employees who are fined for being late for work or violating deadlines, then they themselves will decide when and how much to be late, because now they know the price of the offense!

And remember! Financial incentives are the most expensive way to motivate people to do something. Social norms are less expensive and more effective.

Chapter 5. Time of Mr. Hyde. It turns out that we underestimate the influence of passion on our behavior. Very much underestimated. The reptilian brain takes over our logic. The chapter discusses several ways that can protect us from ourselves.

Chapter 6. Profit grows only in captivity. Today, only the lazy do not talk about customer focus. Books, magazines, the Internet (my blog is no exception) are filled with ideas about improving the service. And yet, despite the huge amount of information, managers are faced with the same problem again and again. Time after time they fail to achieve their long-term goals. Why? Because without pre-formulated commitments, we give in to temptation.

That is why the author recommends that, having set a goal for people, give them the opportunity to independently determine their actions and obligations before starting work. However, he notes that this approach may not be as effective as a dictatorial one. This applies to subordinates. As for Consumers, it is better to give them clear instructions. They like simplicity and the dictatorial approach will be perceived as such.

Chapter 7. An eccentric man. Property is a delicate matter. It makes us "shortsighted":

We fall in love with what we own. The more you invest in the project, the nicer it is... Nobody wants to buy our house or car at our price... There is a pleasant other side. If you invite the Client to participate in the creation of the product he needs, then you understand that he will be grateful to you beyond measure (IKEA effect).

We focus on what we can lose rather than what we can gain. The aversion of loss is a very strong emotion, and emotionalizing and making the right decision are incompatible things.

We think that others see the deal from the same perspective as we do. Participation in quotations and auctions is an excellent confirmation of this.

The feeling of ownership comes to us before the object begins to belong to us. The money-back guarantee plays perfectly into this moment of our irrationality.

Chapter 8. Burn bridges behind you. Trying to preserve all the opportunities given to us often leads us to nothing. Luck comes not to the one who sees the opportunity, but to the one who manages to realize it. Don't be like Buridan's donkey!

Chapter 9. Think positive thoughts. Our expectations rule us, change our perception and assessment of the experience we receive, and some skillfully manipulate this, for example, politicians. You either control or you are controlled...

Chapter 10. Expensive means good. Continuation of the previous chapter about the influence of expectations on our beliefs, our interpretation of facts, and how they change our subjective and objective experience.

Chapter 11, 12. Everyone deceives. As a clothing manufacturer, I was interested to learn that the American retail industry loses $16 billion a year due to consumers wearing clothes with tags after purchase and then returning them to the store. This is an order of magnitude greater than losses from robbery. Yes, the main threat to society comes not from criminal offenses, but from domestic and official crimes. And conscience is no longer the best controller. But there is also good news. If immediately before or at the moments when a person is exposed to temptation, you force him to remember moral rules and oaths, then the likelihood of him committing a violation is reduced. So the need for morning hymns and having a card in your wallet with the company's operating principles or at least the Ten Commandments has proven its necessity.

It is also amazing that we refrain from deception when it comes to cash, and easily violate all the rules of decency when we operate with non-cash transactions. So, the desire of banks to get rid of cache in the near future will lead to an increase in card fraud. So, definitely, there will be banks in which the main transactions will be carried out only in cash.

Dan Ariely. Predictable irrationality. Hidden forces that determine our decisions. - M.: Mann, Ivanov, Ferber, 2010. -296 p.

Thanks for the book, MYTH, and of course, Alena Akimova!

Dan Ariely

PREDICTABLE IRRATIONALITY

The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

To my mentors, colleagues and students - all those who make research so exciting

I am very pleased that now my book is published in Russian.

My family's roots are in Russia, and my grandparents often spoke Russian when some important event was happening or when they didn't want us children to understand what they were talking about. Sadly, I was only able to learn a few Russian words, but the soothing sounds of the language still ring in my ears. I can only regret that my grandparents did not live to this day and cannot see my book published in their native language.

In addition, several years ago I had the honor of teaching an incredibly smart student from Russia named Christina Champanier. I myself learned a lot from her. I was lucky enough to communicate with her wonderful family - these wonderful people introduced me to Russian Standard vodka, and I became a big fan.

I am not very familiar with Russian culture, but I think I can make one important point: the experiments described in my book were carried out mainly with the participation of Americans. It is quite obvious to me that Russians are much more rational.

Irrationally yours,

Dan Ariely

Introduction

How an accident led me to the exploration of irrationality described in this book

Do you know why we so often promise ourselves to go on a diet, but immediately forget about it when a delicious dessert appears in our field of vision?

Do you know why we excitedly buy things that we don't actually need?

Do you know why we continue to complain of a headache after taking a one-cent aspirin, but get instant relief when we swallow a 50-cent aspirin?

I spent the next three years in the hospital, wrapped in bandages, and only occasionally appeared in public, wearing a tight synthetic suit and a mask over my face. I resembled an evil parody of Spider-Man. Unable to participate in the normal lives of my friends and family, I felt disconnected from society. For this reason, I began to reflect on what was once my life. As an observer from another culture (or even from another planet), I began to analyze the reasons for this or that behavior - both mine and those around me. I wondered why I fell in love with one girl and not another, why my new life was built according to rules convenient for doctors and not for myself, why I preferred rock climbing to studying history, or why I was so attentive to the opinions of other people. But most of all, I thought about what motivates people in life and makes us all behave in certain ways.

Over the years I spent in the hospital, I encountered different types of pain and could think about it during long periods between operations. At first, most of the pain was associated with the daily bathing procedure, during which I was immersed in a disinfectant solution, bandages were removed, and along with them, dead skin particles. When the body is covered with skin, the effect of this solution is almost not felt, and the bandages are removed without much effort. However, if there is no skin on the body (as was the case in my case due to multiple burns), disinfectants burn unbearably, bandages stick to the meat, and their removal (read tearing off) leads to terrible, indescribable and incomparable pain .

As soon as I had the opportunity to leave the hospital for a long time (although I had to come for minor operations and checkups for another five years), I entered Tel Aviv University.

Conducting such tests was not always possible, but the idea that science is an empirical exercise in which anyone (even a novice student like me) can come up with an alternative theory and then try to test it opened up a new world for me. world. On one of my visits to Professor Frank's office, I told him about my hypothesis that could explain how a certain stage of an epileptic disease develops, and suggested that I test my idea on rats.