Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, but as MIT professor Dan Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioural economics, people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, he explains why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart and why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money.
According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should, in fact, be based on our systematic, unsurprising irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behaviour brings a variety of opportunities for re-examining individual motivation and consumer choice, as well as economic and educational policy.
In his new book, Predictably Irrational
Ariely addresses these complicated problems with clarity, which you can sample at his blog. The experiments he describes are all easy to understand and he points to their implications for society and its policy-makers.
