{"id":660,"date":"2009-03-05T21:14:21","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T21:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=660"},"modified":"2024-01-23T22:38:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T03:38:13","slug":"ariely_irrational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2009\/03\/ariely_irrational\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariely, Dan: <cite>Predictably Irrational<\/cite> (audio)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><cite>Predictably Irrational<\/cite>, by Dan Ariely<\/strong>, is a popular-level look at behavioral economics, the relatively recent field of study that examines how people actually make decisions, instead of assuming, as economics traditionally has, that people act rationally. As numerous behavioral economics experiments have demonstrated, people often act in ways that are, as the title says, both irrational and predictably so. Thus, for instance, people can be shown to buy things they don&#8217;t actually want just to get something &#8220;free,&#8221; or to pay arbitrary amounts for things related to random numbers like the last digits of their Social Security Numbers.<\/p>\n<p>The book is generally a fun, engaging, and convincing description of the research findings regarding people&#8217;s irrational tendencies. It is somewhat less successful when it suggests ways to combat those tendencies. The worst of these is when Ariely suggests that to make people keep medical screening appointments, they should be forced to put down $100+ deposits. This strikes me as an incredibly efficient way of making sure that the poor get even <em>worse<\/em> health care than they currently do, or, put more concisely, my, what astonishing class bias you have.<\/p>\n<p>My annoyance with that particular &#8220;suggestion&#8221; was probably exacerbated by the reader of the audiobook version, Simon Jones, who is British and whose voice I found just a touch snooty&mdash;giving an extra dash of condescension to this American ear. Otherwise, Jones generally gives a smooth and accessible reading, though I probably would have preferred to read this book.<\/p>\n<p>You can find out more about Ariely&#8217;s research at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.predictablyirrational.com\/\">www.predictablyirrational.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely, is a popular-level look at behavioral economics, the relatively recent field of study that examines how people actually make decisions, instead of assuming, as economics traditionally has, that people act rationally. As numerous behavioral economics experiments have demonstrated, people often act in ways that are, as the title says, both &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2009\/03\/ariely_irrational\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ariely, Dan: <cite>Predictably Irrational<\/cite> (audio)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,118],"tags":[130],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-single-narrator-audio","tag-ariely-dan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2561,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}