Reddit Reddit reviews Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

We found 95 Reddit comments about Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Business & Money
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Economics
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Harper Perennial
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95 Reddit comments about Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions:

u/MattieShoes · 511 pointsr/youtubehaiku

There's a book called Predictably Irrational that talks about studies in human behavior that's related to this. The idea is that we have a certain set of mores for social behavior and a separate set of mores for business behavior, so you get irrational behavior when you cross from one to the other.

For instance, they sold starburst candies as an experiment. As expected, sales went up as price went down, until they became free. Then people took only took a one or two, because it was now a social transaction, not a business transaction. But if they were a penny a piece, people felt free to drop a dollar and take 100 of em.

u/Jackpot777 · 95 pointsr/videos

Wolf, J.R., Arkes, H.R., & Muhanna, W.A. (2008). The power of touch: An examination of the effect of physical contact on the valuation of objects. Judgment and Decision Making 3(6): 476-482.

Even just coming into contact with something (test-driving that car, trying on that shirt, giving that bat a few test swings) gives you a larger affinity with the object. You know you can handle it, it's the right fit for you. It's been shown before that the longer you own something now or the longer you owned it in the past causes you to increase your perceived value of that object (the "length of ownership effect", see link above for examples in the introduction), now we know that just interacting with something makes a sale more likely.

Sunk Costs comes into play too... the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it. The work Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky did in this field showed a genetic advantage for anything that placed more urgency on avoiding threats than they did on maximizing opportunities ...so you see abandoning the pre-purchased movie ticket when the film is still playing as more of a loss than what fun you could be having by just saying "to hell with the $8, this sucks" and walking away (with the possibility that something better could happen). Behavioral economist Dan Ariely hit the nail on the head on this subject in his book, Predictably Irrational. He writes that when factoring the costs of any exchange, you tend to focus more on what you may lose in the bargain than on what you stand to gain.

u/staplesgowhere · 60 pointsr/geek

For more on this, check out Predictably Irrational.

Dan Ariely's TED talk is pretty good too.

u/stonerbobo · 27 pointsr/politics

oh man.. just read /r/AskTrumpSupporters.. its depressing.

It really doesn't matter what arguments you make at all. Their intuitions come first, arguments come second. Intuition says Hillary is snobby/rich/evil and Trump is not, end of story.

There are people justifying Trump Jrs collusion with Russians! Anything can be justified with enough mental contortion and denial.

Really, the sooner you realize critical thinking means nothing to a huge group of people the better. Arguments don't form opinions, they are formed after the fact to justify them. Social pressures (what do my friends think?) & intuitions inform opinions.

EDIT: If this is interesting, checkout The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Its where i stole most of this from. Theres also other related stuf in behavioral econ & psychology - Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Its the tip of an iceberg

u/Lightfiend · 18 pointsr/psychology

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics. (probably most interesting from a Freudian perspective, deals with many of our unconscious instincts)

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces The Shape Our Decisions - Unconscious decision-making, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. Fun read.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Most popular book on the psychology of persuasion, covers all the main principles. Very popular among business crowds.

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships - Social neuroscience, mirror neurons, empathy, practical stuff mixed with easy to understand brain science.

Authentic Happiness - Positive Psychology, happiness, increasing life satisfaction.

Feeling Good - A good primer on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also widely considered one of the best self-help books by mental health practitioners.

The Brain That Changes Itself - Neuroplasticity, how experience shapes our brains. Some really remarkable case studies that get you wondering how powerful our brains really are.

The Buddhist Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom from a Buddhist perspective.

That should give you more than enough to chew on.



u/omaolligain · 16 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Nudge by Thaler (Nobel Prize in Economics) & Sunstein
A book which is unquestionably about Economics and Public Policy

​

I haven't read it yet but it's on my list:
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics also by Thaler

​

Thinking Fast & Slow by Kahneman (Nobel Prize in Economics)
Not strictly about economics but Kahneman essentially created the field of "Behavioral Economics" and the implications for his theories about decision making bias are extensive in Economics. In many ways Kahneman and Tverski's work is the foundation of Thaler's in Nudge.

​

Also:
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
If you can't tell I like the Behavioral Econmics books...

u/kleinbl00 · 15 pointsr/bestof

>Thanks for the response.

Thanks for the conversation. I'm enjoying it.

>So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that karma as a content-sorting system is a useful and necessary part of reddit, while karma as a label on a redditor is an unnecessary and detrimental aspect of reddit.

I largely endorse this summary. I'm not saying personal cumulative karma is completely worthless, but I think "karmawhoring" is entirely related to going for a big score beyond that which is necessary to prevent filtering. I think there should be some point where you "win the game" or "stop leveling" and the score ceases to matter. Those who are only here for the score will either start a new account or leave. Those who were here for the discussions will continue on as before, less the annoying "you're just here for the karma" discussions.

At some point, our cups should truly runneth over.

>I would understand this opinion, as it is explained in the "Abolish Karma" post, but the very beginning of the linked comment seems to suggest otherwise:

>So, here karma (the summed label-on-a-redditor kind, not the content-sorting kind) is a currency regardless of its superficial valuelessness, which would seem to suggest something rather contrary to the "Abolish Karma" post: that karma does have some sort of underlying value.

I touched on this just a moment ago but I'm happy to elaborate.

Dan Ariely has done some interesting research on value and currency in Predictably Irrational. Basically, our behavior is manipulated easily by arbitrary numbers and arbitrary situations. The model for karma is very much like a score in a persistent-universe MMORPG. Scores in MMORPGs lead to gold farming. Most every participant on Reddit is at least passingly familiar with these environments and many of our participants are eloquently versed in them. Meanwhile, there are very few online communities that assign rank and weight to comments. So while the discussions have more in common with a PHPBB or the like, the community isn't unlike WOW.

Where things fall apart, of course, is the fact that you can't sell or trade Karma. Psychologically, however, that doesn't matter - we're primed to expect some sort of redemption system for our score because of past experience and peer influece, so we behave as if there's some sort of redemption system for our score.

I believe this makes Reddit a worse place rather than a better one - if there were some sort of exchange for karma, people wouldn't be scolded for having a high score. People who were just reposting things for the high score would be drummed out of the community. In a very real way, we're acting as if our poker chips are money... when in fact we can't even use them to bet more.

In a nutshell, Redditors behave as if that cumulative karma score had value, even though it doesn't... and this dichotomy causes a lot of squirrely behavior.

Like reposts.

u/huppie · 12 pointsr/teslamotors

I'm pretty sure the 90D option is merely there as a 'decoy' (as Dan Ariely calls it.)

In short: Our brain tends to work with price differences in a relative fashion. The mere presence of the 90D option makes the 100D look like a way better deal. Bonus: People tend to choose the 'middle' option if possible! It's there to lure customers that think about a 90D into spending an extra $3k ("It's a way better deal!"), and lures people thinking about a 75D into upgrading to a 90D ("At least I 'saved' $3k compared to the most expensive option!")

Anyway, the book linked above (or anything by Dan Ariely, really) is well worth a read if you want to have a look into the psychology companies (or salespeople) use to get you to pay (a lot) more than necessary.

u/jambarama · 12 pointsr/Economics

My two favorite books which introduce economic thinking are Armchair Economist and The Undercover Economist. They're quick reads, they're jargon free, and actually teach some of the thinking. Unlike the pop-econ books (Freakonomics and its ilk), which are simply about strange results from research (some of Landsburg's later books suffer from this problem). For an introduction to behavioral economics, you can't do better than Predictably Irrational.

For substance, textbooks are probably best unless you have a carefully chosen list of academic articles. Wooldridge for Econometrics, Mankiw for introductory macro, and Nicholson for introductory micro (Krugman's micro book is fine too). Mankiw writes my favorite econ textbooks. For game theory, I used an older version of Watson's textbook, and it was fine, but I don't know how other game theory books stack up.

If textbooks are a bit much, but you still want a substantive book, the first chapter of Thomas Sowell's introduction is very good, the rest is decent repetition. If you want a some discussion of discredited economic theories that are still trotted out regularly (like trickle down), Zombie Economics is a really fun read.

u/ciscomd · 10 pointsr/Foodforthought
u/[deleted] · 10 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Economics is a pretty broad subject, is there anything in particular you're interested in? I'll list some sources that I find interesting and that have spurred my interest in economics.


Behavioral Economics

  • Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, MIT Professor
    -One of the most engaging books about economics I've read.


  • Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
    -Applying economics to every day life, has a good chapter on how the average crack dealer makes less than minimum wage.

    Macroeconomics
    (Big picture economics)

    Austrian School
    (Popularized, not originated, with Friedrich Hayek and generally take a laissez faire approach to the economy)

  • Relevant reddit thread from about a month ago
  • Relevant youtube video re: Hayek vs Keynes
  • Wikipedia

    Keynesian School
    (Based on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, advocates government intervention in the economy to smooth the otherwise turbulent waves of the business cycle)

  • The Return of Depression Era Economics, Paul Krugman
    -Haven't read this one, but Krugman is one of the more famous Keynesians.
  • Wikipedia

    Chicago School

    Notable Economists:

  • Milton Friedman : Monetarism,
  • Gary Becker : Human Capital,
  • Richard Thaler : Most notable for Behavioral Finance and his Anomalies series of papers in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

    Microeconomics
    (How households / firms make decisions to allocate limited resources. Couple sub categories here, mainly Game Theory and some types of Behavioral Economics)

  • I don't know many casual books that talk about microeconomics. Most of my knowledge is derived from academia. I can recommend good textbooks but I don't think you'd be interested in reading those.

    Casual Books about Economics

  • Economics in One Lesson
    -Pretty sure this is available online for free.
  • Naked Economics
    -Read this a long time ago before I started seriously pursuing economics. Decent introduction to things like opportunity cost and other simple economic concepts.


    Because there is so much information available about economics you might feel a little overwhelmed. That's fine, the important thing is to always keep an open mind and not to dismiss certain theories / information based on a few people's opinions. For example, a lot of people bash on Keyensians these days (and mostly for good reason) but it's important to note that Keyensian economics as its practiced today is vastly different than what John Maynard Keynes had in mind in the early to mid 1900s. Just keep an open mind and form your own opinion.

    I'm sure I forgot a ton of stuff so hopefully other people can fill in what I missed.
u/roast_spud · 9 pointsr/books

Psychology (studied, but never practiced)

Here are a selection of interesting books:

u/narakhan · 9 pointsr/rational

Don't know specifics of what you're after, so I'll shotgun you with links:

u/MCFRESH01 · 8 pointsr/marketing

http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

This is a great book and will probably tie into a lot of psych ideas as well as marketing ideas. It basically goes over how we can predict that people will make "dumb" choices based on personal bias.

I think its a must read for most marketers, especially those interested in running their own tests or working in CPG companies.

u/adhi- · 8 pointsr/nba

you would absolutely love this book.

u/pastarific · 8 pointsr/heroesofthestorm

> I don't own the Nexus Charger but I would be pretty pissed if I spent $40 on a Virtual Ticket for an exclusive mount and it's added to the store as a gold mount.

wat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost%E2%80%93benefit_analysis

Mount was "priced" at $40. You valued the product at or higher than $40. The transaction was made. You were happy. The end.

If you have a problem with this concept, then you should consult a list of decision-making cognitive biases and consider where your problem lies, because your opinion (or buying thought process) is, by definition, irrational.

Further reading: https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248

u/madsci · 8 pointsr/smallbusiness

Predictably Irrational is a great book that covers this and a bunch of related bits of psychology.

u/electrace · 7 pointsr/slatestarcodex

>Obviously the fee wasn't large enough to create a sufficient incentive for many parents to pick up their children on time, but introducing it gave parents the impression that the fee made it okay.

I think that's the point. Or at least, that was the point in Predictably Irrational, the first time this example was given in a pop-econ book (to my knowledge).

In theory, any fee should increase the incentive. In practice, the small fee offset the social pressure that they felt to pick up their children on time.

>This isn't evidence that incentives don't work; it's evidence that badly-designed incentive schemes don't work.

It's evidence that not all incentives work. Introducing a tiny fee was a tiny incentive, and it didn't work.

u/TubePanic · 7 pointsr/italy

> Come da titolo, se siete esperti di economia ditemi un po' dove posso trovare una trattazione divulgativa della materia o un qualche corso online.

Dunque: IEA e' abbastanza tecnico e te lo sconsiglio, ma Undercover Economist e' divertente, e puo' valer la pena di leggerlo anche solo per intrattenimento; sulla stessa riga c'e' anche Freakonomics che pero' a me e' piaciuto molto meno.

Se poi ti viene la voglia, io inizierei con un po' di microeconomia, ci sono ottimi testi universitari che pero' costano un botto; pero' in genere si trovano usati a poco. Quello di Krugmann e' molto 'easy/pop' e con poca matematica (l'ho solo sbirciato, pero'); io ne avevo uno di Perloff e non mi sembrava male (ma parlo di un bel po' di anni fa; probabilmente c'e' qualcosa di piu' aggiornato).


Per i corsi online: una mia conoscenza ha seguito un corso su Coursera di un tipo indiano (non mi ricordo), ma era orripilante: un mio amico lo seguiva, mi ha chiesto di dargli una mano, ho provato a guardare uno dei video e non ho mai visto spiegazioni cosi' vaghe e confuse. Evitalo come la peste..

Credo che qualcosa di migliore sia su Khan Academy; vale la pena di guardare. (EDIT: ho guardato ed e' un po' stringato, ti servira' un supplemento. Krugmann, Perloff o qualunque altra cosa sia disponibile usata a prezzo ragionevole; evita le traduzioni italiane, pero').

Dopo aver guardato un po' di microeconomia, potrai decidere su cosa buttarti.


Se ti interessa la finanza e ti piacciono i romanzi, leggi Liar's poker, che mi e' sembrato spettacolare. E se a questo punto ti prende l'idea di capire cosa sono mai questi misteriosi bond e derivati, c'e' un ottimo e chiarissimo (ma un po' pesante) libro di finanza di Ivo Welch disponibile online; richiede un po' di matematica ma e' chiarissimo.

Ah, visto che ora va di moda la 'behavioral economy', puoi anche leggere qualunque cosa di Dan Ariely (tipo Predictably Irrational), ed e' sempre divertentissimo (e ha fatto pure lui un corso su Coursera con cui mi sono diverito un sacco). Ma se ti interessano poi gli aspetti seri, leggi lo spettacolare Thinking fast and slow di Kahneman (premio nobel, a ragione).

u/xxtoejamfootballxx · 6 pointsr/funny

Humans actually very often act irrationally, but in a predictable manner. I suggest you read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

Edit: Ted Talk on the topic by the author of the book

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions?language=en#

u/eazy_jeezy · 6 pointsr/latterdaysaints

In Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational there's a chapter that explains how fragile our boundaries can be.

A survey subject was asked, while in a cold state, a variety of questions about sexual preferences and how flexible they were with morality, including whether they'd use alcohol or drugs as a means to get sex, whether they would have sex with a woman unusually older or even not quite legal. The answers were recorded and the test subject was paid. Several days later, the same subject was invited back for another test, this time under different conditions. The test subject was left by himself in a room with pornography playing, and he was instructed to pleasure himself, but not to orgasm. Every minute or so, a question would pop up on the screen and he would have to answer by clicking with a mouse. Here's the kicker:

When sexual feelings were turned on, the decisions and preferences varied by over 70 percent. Yes, the subject who swore he'd never use alcohol to get into the pants of a 16 year old now found the idea tempting. The guy who would never be attracted to an old woman was now suddenly willing to give it a try. The person who swore to be abstinent was now having trouble with that commitment.

Mormons (and other faiths) do right by not pushing boundaries. If your boyfriend wants to go farther, explain to him that if you do, it may compromise your ability to use proper restraint in the heat of the moment. It's important that you both really understand this. There may be nothing wrong with what you want to do, except that it makes it easier to get his hand up your shirt or down your pants, and there's a tipping point there that once reached is dang near impossible to turn back from.

u/drtrave · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Your question is very important. Especially for early stage or even first-time founders, who don't have the right support network yet. There are many more resources like Facebook groups, and youtube channels that you can leverage to learn more about entrepreneurship, specific skills, and industries. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific. I'd be more than happy to give you additional pointers.

 

Here is a list of resources that I found very helpful on my journey:

 

Forums
 

Reddit: I was impressed with the quality and depth that you can get by asking meaningful and targeted questions in the right channels such as r/entrepreneur and r/startups.

 

Podcasts
 

All of the podcasts provide a great learning experience through case studies, founder interviews, and startup pitches. Believe me when I say that whatever challenge you're having someone more experience can very likely help you.

 

  1. Jason Calacanis: this week in startups
     

  2. Tim Ferriss: The Tim Ferriss Show
     

  3. James Altucher: The James Altucher Show

     

    Newsletter
     

    Launch Ticker News: One of the best newsletters out there that captures the latest tech and business news sent to your inbox several times per day.

     

    Blogs
     

  4. Andrew Chen
     

  5. Entrepreneurship Unplugged

     

    Books
     

  6. Roger Fisher: Getting to Yes
     

  7. Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
     

  8. Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational

  9. Eric Ries: [The Lean Startup] (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522354359&sr=8-2&keywords=the+lean+startup)

  10. Noam Wasserman: The Founder's Dilemmas
u/CuriousGrugg · 5 pointsr/psychology

>A lot of modern psychology and neuroscience appears to be neglecting the concept of the unconscious mind.... Psychology is so determined to get religion out of science that it cannot allow for the concept of the unconscious

I honestly cannot imagine how you came to this conclusion. There is no question at all among psychologists that unconscious processes play an important role in cognition. Every single popular cognitive psychology book I can think of (e.g. 1 2 3 4) discusses the importance of unconscious processes.

u/TheFeshy · 5 pointsr/TrueAtheism

> simply inquiring to your own experience of being. Turning attention inwards and playing around, trying to discover something.

This is introspection, not spirituality. Or, on a deeper and more scientific level, psychology and neurology. Our personalities and "selves" are made up of numerous sub-parts - every day experiences that pit those parts against each other are common. Like when we want that cookie, but don't want to get fat. But we can probe those parts much more thoroughly, and even selectively disable or trick or occupy one of those sub-parts. You get fascinatingly different answers if you ask people certain questions while they are also continuously adding one to a number every few seconds as opposed to a normal state, because the "consciously considering" part of their brain is distracted and other parts do their best.

Our sense of position is one such part of our personality. It can also be fooled, which leads to some odd experiences (feeling "out of body" for instance) - but never ones that actually violate what you could do normally - that is, you may feel as if you're floating above the room, but you still can't see behind you or on top of objects too high to see.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran actually devised an experiment that ended in people feeling as if the table they were sitting at was part of themselves.

These experiences are a "spiritual" feeling to some people; but spirituality does not provide us with tools to probe them more deeply, or come to a better understanding.

But all of that is just the start; for a fascinating taste of how the sub-parts of our mental heuristic algorithms interact, I suggest this book

u/not-a-jerk · 5 pointsr/psychology

Obviously everyone has their favourites. My primary areas of research are cognitive bias and relational psychology, so I'd recommend starting with:

Cognitive Bias

  • Stumbling on Happiness (book)
  • Predictably Irrational (book)

    Relational Psychology

  • Close Encounters (book)
  • Science of Relationships (website)
  • Not A Jerk (blog, not exclusively psych)

    Rationality

  • Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (free ebook)
  • Less Wrong (website)

    For maximum enjoyment, I'd suggest Stumbling on Happiness or Methods of Rationality, they're both very well written and entertaining reads.

    Finally, if you start looking up references and papers (and if you're interested in this, you will), then grab a copy of zotero. A good citation manager is an absolute joy.

    Disclosure: I'm a member of the International Association for Relationship Research, which is responsible for the Science of Relationships. I'm the primary author for Not A Jerk. Links to Amazon include my affiliate ID.
u/Kellivision · 5 pointsr/infj

Recommended Reading:

u/wingzeromkii · 5 pointsr/Android

If you find this interesting, you might want to check out his book, Predictably Irrational. It's full of interesting examples like this where your mind works in ways that you might not expect.

u/GOD_Over_Djinn · 5 pointsr/Economics

Out of all of those, which would you say are frequently underrepresented in MSM? It seems like the first one is pretty readily parroted by everyone as though it is some grand indictment of supply and demand (it's not) -- try googling the phrase "perfectly competitive markets don't exist". Freakonomics did a pretty good job of popularizing the idea of externalities. Books like Nudge and Predictably Irrational have done a pretty good job of popularizing the recent ideas of behavioural economics. And what to do about natural monopolies (or what even constitutes a natural monopoly, in the real world) is still very much a matter of debate; it's not like there's a definitive answer to that.

u/Geistbar · 5 pointsr/worldnews

A "purely capitalist" economy is impossible, because the end point relies on ideal market characteristics: all competitors and consumers having access to perfect information, and that all actors are 100% rational.

For the first, companies will not offer that, nor will consumers have the resources or time available to themselves to acquire it. Consider, for example: where did the milk from your fridge come from? who shipped it to the grocery store? how much did the farmer get paid? how much waste does cow -> milk process produce? all of those could be or are pertinent questions to some people, and are not trivial to determine. Now extrapolate that out to everything you buy. In most cases, we only have the information we do have because of government intervention.

For the second, humans do not act 100% rationally when making purchases. There's a fantastic book on it. One of the examples that works very well here was the way humans respond to "free". In a study, they gave out Amazon gift cards: a $10 gift card for $1, or a $20 gift card for $8 (limit 1 choice), most people chose the latter, as that has the maximum benefit to the purchaser ($9 of benefit vs $12). After lowering the price on each by $1, most people took the former, even though the latter offered a greater value -- a net gain of $13 instead of $10.

Pure capitalism is like pure communism: sure, it sounds great on paper, but in practice it's impossible to attain and significantly more flawed than a hybrid system.

u/RockyMcNuts · 5 pointsr/Economics

These are not finance books, but popular books on behavioral economics by leading academics

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast And Slow (a classic, I think)
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein - Nudge
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X

Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational
http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

u/hitssquad · 4 pointsr/RealTesla

The power of free has nothing to do with rationality. Read Predictably Irrational.

u/sukeroku · 4 pointsr/funny

I recommend the book: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

to understand more about human nature and how our perceptions mold our realities. We all need to understand the other side's perceptions and how they see things in order to understand how to persuade them.

u/brikis98 · 4 pointsr/programming

Supply and demand works if we are perfectly rational actors. But there is considerable evidence that we're not: see Predictably Irrational and Thinking, Fast and Slow. Salary in particular is known for irrational behavior. See the discussion of motivation in Drive or the short version in Daniel Pink's TED talk. Programmers are already fairly well paid and while I would certainly love to be paid more, I'm not convinced that alone would significantly increase the supply of developers.

The evidence for the talent gap is both anecdotal--every company I've worked at and many others I've interacted with complained extensively about lack of good developers--and some limited data (example 1, example 2), though it's not clear how to properly measure something like this.

Finally, I'm not sure that merely having 10x skill is enough to guarantee 10x pay. Perhaps in a perfect market with perfect knowledge and perfectly rational actors, it might be, but that's not how the real world works. You need not only 10x skill at your job, but also at turning that into money, which may be a completely different set of talents. For example, a 10x writer might make less money than an average writer if that average writer had their book turned into a popular teen movie. Similarly, the way for a programmer to make 10x the money is usually not to focus on salary (although there were some stories of Google and FB offering millions to retain some developers), but equity. And there, an exec-level programmer can get 10x the equity of a normal dev, though there is obviously a lot of luck as to whether the equity ends up paying off.

u/selectively_rational · 3 pointsr/NoFap

You might say it's selectively rational.

Sorry. But I agree 100%. The comic may inspire some people, and I don't want at all to get in the way of that, but aside from the fact that the conversation was pretty much just a polemic for the cigarette dude, if you take that philosophy to its logical conclusion you end up being kind of a dick.

Often peoples desires can't be reconciled with reality, and not everyone can find a way to reshape themselves to want different things. People become depressed, and they don't want to be depressed, but they don't know how to be any other way.

The human brain isn't a perfectly rational machine, either, so even when you do know what you want, you can be undermining yourself without realizing it. You don't have one overarching life goal, you have many, and virtually every choice you make involves a compromise between several desires, and compromises are something brains are notoriously bad at making. Predictably Irrational, the Dan Ariely book that inspired my username, is full of examples of this.

What I prefer to do is acknowledge that goals can be hard, and try to find communities (like NoFap) where collectively we are stronger than we are individually. My shortcomings are different than yours, so we can share strategies.

At the end of the day, yes, I have to own up to my decisions. But the relationship between wanting something and achieving it is something I don't fully understand. I just know it's more complex than "A implies B".

u/rainman_104 · 3 pointsr/canada

I strongly recommend reading this book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

It's pretty awesome.

u/sketchius · 3 pointsr/Frugal

This is a good example of applied behavioral economics. Dan Ariely has written some interesting books on the topic, if anyone is interested:

Predictably Irrational

The Upside of Irrationality

u/Arguss · 3 pointsr/AskALiberal

Books:

  • American Progressivism: A Reader has a collection of political speeches and essays from the Progressive Era, when a lot of the modern state was put into place. It lays out how Progressives created the foundations of modern America, and their vision is one still largely shared by liberals today.

  • I always recommend The Righteous Mind by Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, where he talks about the different moral foundations for conservatives and liberals, how we have different foundational axioms that lead us down different paths to differing conclusions about the direction of society.

  • If you really want to know about economics, there's an entire playlist of videos representing the semester course for college-level Macroeconomics you can go through; you don't need a book to follow along. There's another playlist for Microeconomics.

  • Those two will give you a basic overview of economics, although I'd recommend reading more about behavioral economics and market failures as well. Dan Ariely, a psychologist/economist, has a book Predictably Irrational which goes through several examples of how people predictably act against the 'homo economicus' of Econ 101 teaching, although it's much more pop-econ, so it's not super informational.

  • I'd also check out How To Lie With Statistics, which goes through examples of how statistics, graphs, etc are commonly misused in media, and what to watch out for, which can help you spot evidence that doesn't prove what the person showing it says it proves.

    ---
    Podcasts:

  • Worldly is the Vox podcast for international politics, although it's not just exclusively Middle East, it does talk about it, including an episode on the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, and an episode on the war in Yemen being a proxy-war for two regional Middle Eastern powers.

  • The Weeds is Vox's podcast for domestic politics, which is pretty good.

  • Pod Save America is run by two former Obama staffers and is openly liberally biased, but quite fun.

  • Revolutions podcast goes through the big revolutions of history; their causes, the systemic failures that allowed them to occur, the reforms that weren't done, the way each side was perceived politically at the time, the actual wars/battles that occurred, and the political results.

    The podcast so far has talked about: The English Civil War, The American Revolution, The French Revolution, The Haitian Revolution (the first successful slave-led revolution), The Venezuelan Revolution (and basically all of Northwest South America), The French Revolution of 1830, and they're now on The Revolutions of 1848.

    These revolutions as you listen to them end up having common themes and patterns, and their political ideas shaped modern political discourse, such that what we now consider the 'acceptable bounds' of political discourse was largely determined by these earlier revolutions.
u/kipkoan · 3 pointsr/PoliticalDiscussion

> Libertarianism is cruel in that if a person does not seek out education, or healthcare, or whatever else, they can fail and even die. But it is the most just system because it treats human beings with respect as individuals capable of making their own decisions.

I agree... and this is why I have mixed feelings about Libertarianism. I start with the idea that what is good is to minimize suffering and maximize wellbeing. I think that usually means letting people make their own decisions. But I think it can sometimes mean acknowledging that we are all predictably irrational, so having some laws that encourage us to make good decisions can be good.


> In short, liberals view humans as stupid creatures unable to do for themselves and conservatives view humans as stupid creatures that refuse to do for themselves.

I think they both are sometimes right and sometimes wrong -- and figuring out when is the hard part. And because figuring out when is very hard, we should err on the side of letting people make their own decisions.


> In reality, laws written on paper do not change human hearts.

Being written on paper doesn't matter (except for the legal system), but enforcing laws can change hearts (desires/aversions), and behaviors. I think punishment is one of the basic social tools we have to change desires and behaviors. It's far more costly than using condemnation (or praise), though, so I prefer using it only for the most important reasons. Punishment is like the burn one feels when touching a hot stove -- one quickly acquires an aversion to touching a hot stove after being burned.

u/AmaDaden · 3 pointsr/todayilearned

This was a study done by Dan Ariely. He's a Psychologist who studies irrational human behavior and has written 3 books on the subject and done several TED talks. He has many results that are just as interesting as this that he talks about

His first bookPredictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

His TED Talks

u/ertiloperta · 3 pointsr/portugal

Seguindo a mote do teu ultimo livro, já leste algo do Dan Ariely

u/droptune · 3 pointsr/tipofmytongue

The book Predictably Irrational takes a look at this, most notably in the chapter about beer. They set up several tests to see when the beer is labeled in different ways, how this reflects the outcome of the survey.

This has also been tested a lot recently in the "organic" field, where people are told to choose between organic food and traditional foods using pesticides or chemicals. Almost every time people choose the organic item IF its labeled organic. They choose the organic item even if its not really organic, its just labeled that way. One of my favorite versions of the test is to use non-organic for both items, but label one as organic and watch people describe how much better the organic item is, even though they are exactly the same. Penn and Teller did version of this test. I am not saying that the most scientific test, but its fun to watch the organic hipsters squirm when they realized they actually liked the non-organic food.

In closing though, no, I don't know the exact term for this.

u/kevad · 3 pointsr/booksuggestions

I enjoyed Predictably Irrational, which is in the same style as Freakonomics. Interesting results that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

u/redalastor · 3 pointsr/elm

If you were to divulge more speculative information about 0.19 I'd definitely jump on it. But the size of the gzip bundle of a SPA done with Elm that is quite competitive with the other frameworks now feels bloated since 0.19 will have dead code elimination. It's not rational.

Emotionally, I'm with the sibling comment. But intellectually, I know I'm biased.

There's an awesome book called Predictably Irrational about that kind of phenomenons, I highly recommend it!

u/ObviousSubtlety · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

A whole chapter about that ad in Dan Arielys Predictably Irrational.
http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248

Actually, if you click to "look inside" you can read it in chapter 1, The Truth about Relativity.

u/burrit0s · 2 pointsr/videos

If anyone is interested in more of this, a great book I read called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely dives deep into the irrationality of human psychology. Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

u/Enginerdiest · 2 pointsr/pics

Predictably Irrational is an excellent book on the subject.

u/granty3 · 2 pointsr/psychology

Pretty much anything in this book

u/bannercoin · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

People are also predictably irrational - a good book, by the way for Entrepreneurs - https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248/

u/yo_soy_soja · 2 pointsr/vegan

Yeah, I was atheist for ~ 4-5 years during college. I'm 23 now and consider myself a nonaffiliated theist.

I grew up vaguely Christian. My father and mother had, respectively, been raised in Protestant and Catholic churches and had had issues with their practices. My brother and I were never raised in any church, but were told that God exists.

I also had a number of "spooky" experiences growing up. Ghosts. A dead great-aunt maybe visiting me before family deaths. These mainly occurred during my high school years. They make me strongly believe in some sort of afterlife. I describe them here.

In college, I grew skeptical of God -- Problem of Evil, the incompatibility of free will and "a divine plan", and whatnot. I adopted a materialistic worldview, and my spooky past experiences were essentially ignored because they couldn't be reconciled. But they humbled me and made me a bit skeptical of my own worldview.

I graduated this year in March with a BA in philosophy. I needed some sort of direction/purpose, but, after reading Change of Heart and Predictably Irrational I grew skeptical of human reasoning. And of course our senses and memories are flawed. Of all the animals in the world, from worms to cows, with all their limited perceptions of the world, why do we humans assume that we have a correct perception of the world?

I concluded that we can't have a firm, certain grasp on anything. And so my endeavor to live the best life was impossible. And my reliance on science and reasoning were shattered because humans and their reasoning are flawed.

  • Note that science is built upon theories/principles of knowledge founded in empiricism, a school of metaphysics. Science uses metaphysical and epistemological principles and applies them to the world. But science isn't capable of looking at its foundational principles. That's a job for philosophers.

  • And science makes only objective observations, not normative ones. Science can't make moral claims. It can inform morality, but it can't arrive at moral conclusions alone.

  • On top of that, we have no fucking clue what consciousness is or how it arises. The Problem of Other Minds reminds us that we can't be sure of who or what is also conscious. We just do our best to make sense of how something acts and how much its anatomy resembles ours (because I know that at least I'm conscious.)

    On top of that, as a graduate, I no longer had college professors telling me what to do. I had no clear goals in life to work towards. And so now, post-college, all the responsibility was on my shoulders to choose what to do and pursue with my life. That's a big responsibility. But how do I make decisions if I have no certain grasp on anything? I spiraled into depression.

    So I sought wisdom.

    I talked to friends and family about wisdom. I looked at the Greek philosophers who spoke of wisdom and virtue.

    I looked at all the major religions to see what wisdom they might hold. I looked for patterns between them in hopes of finding something universal that they all described.

    I also became increasingly focused on immediate sensory and intuitive knowledge as opposed to the theory and abstract nature of science and philosophy. I started reading from NDERF's archives of self-reported near-death experiences to look for patterns.

    -----

    ....

    Anywho, I've arrived at the conclusion that everyone does their best to make sense of the world. I try not to judge others. Even if they're Mormons or Scientologists or Wiccans. I have my spooky history. I've come to believe that an afterlife exists. I see what others think about the supernatural, and I see if it appeals to me. I think Sikhism is pretty reasonable and beautiful, and I think my attachment to the afterlife belief almost obligates me to believe in a higher power. Sikhs seek to create and maintain chardi kala, a happiness in life by being content and thankful, which greatly appeals to me. But Sikhism does have a fair bit of ritual (albeit with legitimate purpose) and some guru praise which, given my history, seems a bit too much of a commitment.

    What I can say with some certainty is that it's good to live a life of virtue. It is good and feels good to help others. It's good to enjoy life and not take it for granted. Everyday, I consciously make an effort to be virtuous and to be thankful for my blessings. Veganism and activism are obvious applications of virtue and helping others. If God exists, I thank It everyday for all the good I experience. I thank it for the beauty in the world. As flawed as the world is, it's certainly more wonderful than horrible.
u/gjahnke · 2 pointsr/WTF

I recently read this book Predictably Irrational where they talk about how given 3 options the human brain immediately wants to pick the one in the middle.

In this case, the real winner here is 750GB hard drive for $440. Dell has tricked you into thinking this is a deal.

Much like a restaurant will put a ridiculously high priced item on their menu to make it seem the rest of the menu is reasonably priced.

u/rez9 · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

On Combat by Dave Grossman is an amazing book. It's about what (likely) goes on in your mind, and how your body will (likely) react, in a life-or-death situation. As Grossman puts it "Forewarned is forearmed." People need to know this.

Mindfulness by Ellen Langer is about life on autopilot. How it happens and how we can live to avoid falling into routines and such. People need to know this.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely is clever stuff.

u/grepcdn · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

I've read thinking fast and slow, it's a great book.

Also interesting and along the same lines is Predictably Irrational

u/aronnyc · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

I've read a few books that might cover these:

u/kumiorava · 2 pointsr/gaming

Dan Ariely wrote a book, Predictably Irrational, about this sort of irrational behavior. Absolutely fascinating read.

u/StrayK · 2 pointsr/intj

Movie: Enter The Void - About a drug dealer in Japan (not a Japanese movie though, main language is English) and a psychedelic experience of a soul in the immediate afterlife. Trigger warning: possible motion sickness and plenty of strobing.

Song: Prophecy (YK2000 Mix) - Front Line Assembly - If you like industrial sort of stuff.

Book: [Predictably Irrational] (http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578786&sr=8-1&keywords=predictably+irrational) - By behavior economist Dan Ariely who argues that humans are not fundamentally rational but systematically irrational.

u/-t-o-n-y- · 2 pointsr/userexperience

If she's interacting with a lot of users I would suggest reading Practical Empathy. Observing the User Experience is another great resource for learning about user research. User experience is all about people so it's always a good idea to read up on human behavior, psychology, cognition, perception, learning and memory etc. e.g. books like Hooked, Bottlenecks, Design for the mind, Designing with the mind in mind, 100 things every designer needs to know about people, 100 more things every designer needs to know about people, Thinking fast and slow, Predictably Irrational and I would also recommend Articulating design decisions and Friction.

u/CatalyticDragon · 2 pointsr/DebateAnAtheist

Reasoning creatures sure, as much as any other mammal but a hell of a lot less rational than most people would want to believe. We are predictably irrational.

u/TURRISDAYNightHockey · 2 pointsr/TrueReddit

Oh true. When I was like 6 or 7 I used to get up on Saturday mornings (city/burbs) 7am, grab some change and go buy hockey cards and candy, at like 7am before GForce came on or something. I'd walk a mile to the store, cross a busy street and back again, then go for a bike ride in the woods.

SOmetimes I wouldn't come home for hours, never bothered anyone. I suggested to my wife that by 6 or 7 my little one should be able to go to the local park by herself and she disagreed vehemently.

Totally irrational.

Then some asshole gave her this "best seller": http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

u/Fran89 · 2 pointsr/atheismrebooted

Haha, that is a very interesting question, one that was I think a bit explained below, but you seem to be open minded, which is great! but just like you believe it is bullshit (which it is), your mind is just as open minded about it being real. I quote /u/Ish_the_Stomach

> Helping the subject stay relaxed and open minded to the possibility that the cards have something to say to them.

That said if you're interested, pm and I can send you two books that I've read on these types of subjects called:

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

and

[Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion] (https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X) by Robert Cialdini

They are good ebooks and to anwer your question. Humans are wired that way.

u/Tangurena · 2 pointsr/sex

I'm going to recommend that the driver abstain.

Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational mentions that his group does behavioral economics research and that a couple of their experiments were on how sexual arousal interferes with decision making. Their conclusion was that the decision-making-while-masturbating was impaired about as bad as being drunk enough to fail a DUI checkpoint. Texting while driving impairs one's attention enough that it is now illegal, so rubbing one out while driving is likely to become eventually equally illegal.

u/t6005 · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

If you're interested in the way people are manipulated, I would also recommend Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. He also has a fantastic TED talk that gives you an idea of what he does.

While it's not strictly sociological per se (he's a behavioral economist), it's nonetheless an accessible and relatively illuminating read.

If you're looking for strictly sociological or anthropological texts, it's going to be a harder sell since as /u/PerfectSituation pointed out, the field is massive. If you want to learn about representation and Others (like national enemies) you can look into [Orientalism by Edward Said](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism(book)) and the entire field that draws upon that book as a foundation, with people like Veena Das and her phenomenal little essay Violence and Translation (which you can doubtless find for free elsewhere). If you're interested in gender, maybe take a look at Judith Butler and some of the people who drove her work. Race? That's a loaded one but maybe Stuart Hall (who quite sadly passed last month)?

Those last two in particular have done some incredible work, but you have to be careful since they come out of the same background of discourse studies, and you can trace them back to Michel Foucault's ideas about discourse. If you're interested in Foucault and discourse beyond what the wikipedia article says, whatever you do don't read him yet. Look at how his work filters through some more accessible authors (Paul Rabinow is fantastic, but both Butler and Hall are also good reference points).

Sorry for the short essay, but you should know that you're stepping into a wealth of work done over decades and in which there are ongoing arguments. And it's not a bad thing by any means - it simply means that, while each of these authors is interested in the ways our ideas and our worlds are shaped, you can go in knowing the same thing about the very texts you're reading!

u/adrianmonk · 2 pointsr/Android

It's not really evidence on its own. And he is actually a behavioral economist. I have his book "Predictably Irrational", and it is actually worth reading. In the book, he goes into more details about the ideas he mentioned in this blog post.

u/steelypip · 2 pointsr/DebateReligion

> The second problem is that natural selection would select for beliefs that help survival, not necessarily for beliefs that are true.

If you think that the human mind selects for things that are true then you are way off the mark. Read Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, or look at this list of cognitive biases, or simply look at all the crazy beliefs and religions that have existed in the world (excluding yours of course, whatever that may be).

> ...There is nothing about natural selection that will tend to favor congitive faculties that give true beliefs about the world.

Our cognitive facilities do NOT in general give true beliefs about the world, which is why we have to have this rigorous scientific process of repeated testing and peer review to get round our cognitive biases and to gradually inch towards what is actually true rather than what appears to be true, or what we would like to be true.

u/BearD0WN · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

In Dan Ariely's book, Predictabl Irrational, http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323917680&sr=8-1
He introduces that behavioral economics as throwing out the main assumption that people are rational, and rather than relay on a model to say how people dictate like a normal economist, behavioral economists conduct a experiment and make a model around the real life results. That was my first introduction to behavioral economics.

However, when I took a undergrad class on it, at no point did the professor define behavioral economics as the study of "how people act irrationally". he defined it in the way MassiveNutsack did. (lulz at the name).

So the way I see it, it's defined slightly differently in Acadameia then it is in Pop Econ books. but that is true of a lot of things.

u/mitochondrio · 2 pointsr/AskMen

Oh, certainly. Without deviations from the norm, what fun would life be?

I'm glad you liked the link. I hope you'll continue reading material about this sort of thing; it really is fascinating.

The article itself isn't the very best available on the general topic, but sometimes in conversation the "best" info isn't always best. I certainly don't claim to have deep knowledge of these things, but I hope to occasionally spur someone onward to someone who does.

For biases, mental heuristics, and irrationality with a pop science-y feel, I recommend Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, and Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely.

u/piggybankcowboy · 1 pointr/books

Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? - both wonderful collections of Richard Feynman talking about his life, the way he thinks about things, and lessons he learned.

Those are really the first four that come to mind that have had a noticeable effect on the way I think. Might do the same for you, as well.

u/SocratesTombur · 1 pointr/india

> citizens of Mumbai are not happy about it.

Humans are creatures of habit. They don't like changes to things that they are used to, even if the change is quantitatively better. Why do phone calls sound the way they do? Because copper lines can only carry so much data, so the frequency response of phones were reduced to save bandwidth. With advents of better technology, bandwidth massively opened up. So American telephone companies experimented with more natural sounding services, but quickly reverted because people didn't like it and wanted it to sound like a 'telephone'. So almost all phone calls today are equalized to make it sound like a phone. The irrationality of people is plentiful. Read the book Predictably Irrational.

> Source: LED Streetlights Save Energy, but Could Have Some Serious Side Effects.

You just can't do a google search and append a study into a debate with completely different factors. The last thing that we need in mumbai is to apply factors of animal welfare. A lot of these studies suffer from the correlation-causation trouble. Further more, until meta studies emerge, I don't think it is prudent to make it basis for policy. Besides, for the overwhelming majority of the public, exposure would be for an incredibly short duration. We have far greater risk from the Florescent light tubes which are ubiquitously found in the subcontinent. They have the same blue light concerns and also UV risks. Majority of Indians are exposed to them for tens of hours each week. What do you suggest we do to them?

---

You are unnecessarily prolonging this debate to the point of uselessness. You are bent upon proving a point rather than look at the larger picture. I've made my point about reform derailment. I rest my case.

u/myself248 · 1 pointr/hackerspaces

> As a general thing, I'd avoid useless tokens as rewards. Something like a special edition logo t-shirt or free time on a tool that normally costs money to operate (we charge for laser cutter time) would make MUCH more sense than a star or ribbon. A yearly appreciation dinner / party with voted awards and accolades might work as well.

Just the opposite -- I've observed (and this is really well explained in Predictably Irrational and presumably other pop-psych lit) that when you offer money or money-equivalent for some things people previously did for free, nobody does anything for free anymore. Once you take things out of the social space and into the market, you can't go back.

So I think it's most important for the rewards to be purely for fun, so people continue doing them for the same reason people volunteer their time for everything else around the space -- because it makes them feel good. Give 'em a funny giraffe on their userpage that says "Glorious" or something, because you can't trade that for money.

u/bluefootedpig · 1 pointr/Debate

I would start up with:
http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248

The author has a tedtalks, an RSA talk, and a few other things on this topic, but he is in behavior economics and his book is very well documented. I highly recommend it, it basically explains how people lie, why we lie, and how to teach people not to lie. He has a book directly on lying and doing bad things, which is called "The honest truth about dishonesty".

To highlight one study, they found that by having people sign that they agree to a code of conduct (even if the code doesn't exist), or swear on a bible (even if atheist) will yield a significant reduction in the amount of cheating, if done right before cheating can occur.

u/yajnavalkya · 1 pointr/politics

This was actually experimentally shown in Dan Ariely's book "Predictably Irrational." They set up a booth and actually attempted to give away up to $50. When they offered $1 bills less than 1 percent of people actually took one and by the time they were up to $50 it was only 19% who accepted the free money.

u/jamkey · 1 pointr/Foodforthought

There's actually a book that covers a lot of this: "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely

u/InRe · 1 pointr/exmormon

I love this kind of stuff. It's crazy the things we base our decisions on. And no matter how much you educate yourself on the fallacies and misconceptions of the world, you are still going to make them; you simply can't avoid doing it.

The book Predictably Irrational is quite interesting, as are many in the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought."

u/MensaDropout · 1 pointr/books

Influence by Cialdini is a must read for just about anyone, in any occupation.

As a business owner, Predictably Irrational is a must read. As is Why We Buy. The Way of the Weasel is also a good one.

u/metalliska · 1 pointr/atheism

>And here I was thinking that making rational decisions about human-centric values is what we do, as humans

Then perhaps you should widen your scope

>Xenovoltrons

Dafuq?

u/arvinsim · 1 pointr/Philippines

> As a functioning member of society, you are expected to conform to social norms. Barring that, you are expected to follow the law.
> Failure to follow one could make you a pariah, the other will land you in prison or worse.

Agree on both points.

"Irrational" is a vague word. My apologies for not providing the context.

When I mean "irrational", I am talking about the kind of irrationality that Dan Ariely is discussing.

u/Marmun-King · 1 pointr/videos

I initially followed the principles of Stoicism, which is a philosophy that's very close to the principles of CBT. So my first resource was /r/Stoicism, where you can find things like this and this that have direct correlation with CBT principles. Greek and Roman literature might be hard to get into, but there are very readable translations and the principles are applicable.

Of course, not everyone is interested in philosophy, so my recommendation would be to find something along the lines of Judith Beck's Cognitive Therapy, or other similar resources that are based on research. I can't really recommend else because I haven't read much from other authors.

But in general I would recommend reading about cognitive biases in general, along the lines of this, this, this, or this. Being conscious of how everybody thinks might help you see some negative spirals in your life, and can help you change the environment that might lead you to that negativity.

But again, professional help can be very useful, so definitely consult a professional who is maybe better for you. Good luck!

u/adelaide091 · 1 pointr/Feminism

> but you're sexist and need to learn about your bias.

There are tons of books on business/decision-making out there which focus on the idea of how unconscious biases can lead to worse outcomes/poor management/lost money. I feel like getting someone to buy into the idea that biases lead to worse outcomes can be a good path to helping them identify biases which may be more uncomfortable to confront initially.

Examples:
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248
https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669

u/used2bgood · 1 pointr/Wishlist

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. Or anything by Dan Ariely, really. His YouTube talks are also amazing.

u/Yare_Owns · 1 pointr/gamedev

I don't have the exact citation handy, but it's one of the many interesting experiments covered in this book by an MIT professor: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

It's a great book on behavioral economics and I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to understand why people make consistently sub-optimal choices.

u/fishtank · 1 pointr/AskReddit

There is a book by Dan Ariely "Predictably Irrational" that discusses this behaviour!
Basically, put the wine you want to sell in the middle of 3, closer to the cheapest ($25, $32, $50)

I first heard of Dan Ariely in a Ted-Talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html) but I don't remember if he discusses this in this video or if I've got it from his book

(http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1321205303&sr=8-3)

u/more_lemons · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

u/likebuttermilk · 1 pointr/philosophy
u/HanumanTheHumane · 1 pointr/Bitcoin
u/Foolness · 1 pointr/productivity

Good post but it's missing references.

The poster book for Stoicism and productivity mixed together: The Obstacle is the Way

Not sure about the rest but for subjectivity, I'm guessing The Now Habit

Guess for negativity bias Predictably Irrational

Guess for think objectively Succeed

Guess for advice to friends The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I guess this goes to explain my downvote. I'm not really expecting a fully referenced article but it goes to show that either productivity concepts are overrated and can be summed up in one short article or the concepts, as written in the article, is vastly under-represented if not mis-represented.

I'm sure my lone vote won't matter much in the river of upvotes and congrats for giving your site and articles that "Seth Godin" touch but you could do better.

u/dust4ngel · 1 pointr/edmproduction

> What will happen if you don't meet your goal?

this is why you should:

  • take your big goal and decompose it into small goals
  • if the small goals are still to big, decompose them some more
  • tie something you want in the near future to completing these tiny goals

    so for example, if you like playing video games, or watching movies, or whatever, and you want to release an EP by summer:

  • "release an EP" becomes "finish a song a month"
  • "finish a song a month" becomes "finish the hook this week"
  • "finish the hook this week" becomes "finish the bass line today"
  • say to yourself "i can't play video games/watch movies/whatever i want to do until i finish this bass line"

    source
u/NoOfficialComment · 0 pointsr/liberalgunowners

Strict rationality isn't always the best option.

> See above. Intelligent people understand that we already live in a society where it benefits to trust others. If you are selectively not trusting people in only one way, it's not rational.

This makes very little sense when you consider all the things we do and do not trust people with, you included. We trust other to make decisions on our behalf every day and we also agree to not trust others just as much. By the same token, I trust my fellow citizens to not want to murder me openly in the street and thus have no need for carrying a firearm in the street. You are taking a broad scientific principle of social trust and trying to use it as a justification for a very selective single situation.

> Contrary to what you may think, we are a rational, predictable species.

Not really, that's the whole point of the many cognitive biases we as humans hold. However we are predictable but this has nothing to do with rationality. This book is a good read.

u/lord_dumbello · 0 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Here's my suggestions:

  • Freakonomics is a fun introduction to economics. It has some caveats (most high-level economists disagree with the book) but I think it's a great way to get excited about economic concepts and see some of the things you can do with them.
  • There are a bunch of excellent topic-focused lighter-reading economics books such as: Wikinomics, The Wal-Mart Effect, and Predictably Irrational, to name a few.
  • I know you said "pop-sci" but if you're into mysteries at all then there's a fun series of two books written by a pair of economists called Murder at the Margin and Fatal Equilibrium. The books are murder mysteries in which the main character solves the mystery using economic principles. They are a little silly but an entertaining read.
  • If you're interested in something a little more hands on there are a number of free (low expectation) online introductory courses. The University of Illinois in particular is offering a completely free course in Principles of Microeconomics. It's fairly unorthodox and should be both fun and informative. I highly recommend it from personal experience.

    Hope that helps!
u/vortexcubed · 0 pointsr/pcgaming

> Plain and simple. Stop pre-ordering games!

Sorry but you need to learn the science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248/

The brain doesn't work like you think it does, the reason this stuff happens is because people aren't "free", the brain isn't built for free market society.

u/OutofH2G2references · 0 pointsr/AskSocialScience

As someone who majored in economics as an undergrad and who is now studying decision-making/psychology in grad-school, I suggest you focus more on economic philosophy than on traditional intro to econ stuff, like the text books being suggested, which usually focuses on micro and macro models.

I feel this way for two reasons.

  1. The of field of economics has not given up on B.F. Skinner-esk behaviorism. Many of the theories about preference, risk, and decision-making are just now starting to accommodate what Psychologists have understood for around 40 years. People are not perfectly rational decision makers. An example of this: It has only been a decade since Daniel Kahnemen won the nobel prize in Economics for Prospect Theory. A theory he devised in the 70's and which is increasingly seen as out of date/incomplete in the psychology literature.

    Utility theory was a useful first attempt at understanding how people make decisions, but like many first attempts, it just doesn't hold water 60 years later. Unfortunately economics has not adapted.

    Much of this is focused on the micro side, but I can do an equally long rant about how ridiculously out of date metrics like GDP, CPI, etc are in the realm of macro economics.

  2. Learning the models and mechanism won't actually illuminate which side of debate is right or wrong. Economics simply isn't advanced enough to tell us if Keynes, Marx, or Milton Friedman was right. I could go on at length about this, but I feel strongly that none of these theories will ever really be able to undermine the others because they start with the incorrect hypothesis that human behavior can only be predicted by strictly observing people's choices (meaning that the mechanisms driving those choices do not matter) and that people behavioral rationally.

    So, with that being said, I suggest a broader approach. Something like The Big Three which details the lives and philosophies of the 3 most influential thinkers in Economics (Smith, Marx, and Keynes)

    To further round out you knowledge I would also recommend Vienna & Chicago Which gives a good overview of classical and modern free market economics.

    Finally, I recommend Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Predictably Irrational, if you are unfamiliar with the work, as a good moderators of the two fields.
u/Buffalox · -3 pointsr/technology

I think it may be adopted as a useful addition to the language, as a more accurately describing term in some cases than using scandal or whatever other broader terms might fit too.


The reason we see so many, is that morality has declined for several reasons since the 60's. Not because people are worse now than they used to be, but because of systemic changes.


At least that's what speculated in this book:


https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248