Research Catalog

Title

Predictably irrational : the hidden forces that shape our decisions / Dan Ariely.

Author

Ariely, Dan.

Publication

New York : Harper, [2008], ©2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 280 pages; 24 cm

Summary

An evaluation of the sources of illogical decisions explores the reasons why irrational thought often overcomes level-headed practices, offering insight into the structural patterns that cause people to make the same mistakes repeatedly.

Subjects

• Consumer behavior
• Economics > Psychological aspects
• Decision making

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references, appendix, and index.

Contents

Introduction: How an Injury Led Me to Irrationality and to the Research Described Here -- Chapter 1. The Truth about Relativity: Why Everything Is Relative-Even When It Shouldn't Be -- Chapter 2. The Fallacy of Supply and Demand: Why the Price of Pearls-and Everything Else-Is Up in the Air -- Chapter 3. The Cost of Zero Cost: Why We Often Pay Too Much When We Pay Nothing -- Chapter 4. The Cost of Social Norms: Why We Are Happy to Do Things, but Not When We Are Paid to Do Them -- Chapter 5. The Influence of Arousal: Why Hot Is Much Hotter Than We Realize -- Chapter 6. The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control: Why We Can't Make Ourselves Do What We Want to Do -- Chapter 7. The High Price of Ownership: Why We Overvalue What We Have -- Chapter 8. Keeping Doors Open: Why Options Distract Us from Our Main Objective -- Chapter 9. The Effect of Expectations: Why the Mind Gets What It Expects -- Chapter 10. The Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can't -- Chapter 11. The Context of Our Character, Part I: Why We Are Dishonest, and What We Can Do about It -- Chapter 12. The Context of Our Character, Part II: Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest -- Chapter 13. Beer and Free Lunches: What Is Behavioral Economics, and Where Are the Free Lunches?

ISBN

• 9780061353239
• 006135323X

OCLC

• 182521026
• ocn182521026
• SCSB-13567109

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries