The book and blog Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely are worth reading.
Those who familiar with my approach to politics know that I work from the premise that we are all bears of little brains. We think we are very clever (we blog – that’s about as clever as you can get!). We like to think we approach the world rationally and that we make good decisions for good reasons. None of us gets up in the morning and thinks “I could do what makes sense, helps people and advances my own personal goals or I could be an idiot, kick a dog and send my bank information to that nice Nigerian prince who keeps emailing me…I know, I’ll email the prince.” (Those unfamiliar with my rants can get samples here, here and here).
But…
We’re not fully rational in a classical economics sense. We do not carefully, fully and dispassionately weigh all of the options. Instead we rely on mental shortcuts to help us make sense of our world. We aren’t irrational, but rather boundedly rational or intendedly rational. We behave in ways that make that are predictable within the confines of what makes sense to us.
This is the space in which Prof. Ariely writes. His book is a fast, fun and accessible introduction to behavioral economics. He provides lots of examples of experiments demonstrating that we act in ways that are predictable but that may not make sense (for example preferring a free $10 gift certificate to a $20 gift certificate for which we have to pay $3). The book is not a great piece of scholarship – there are frustratingly few footnotes and charts, and most of his experiments seem to have been conducted with (on?) MIT students who may or may not reflect anyone other than MIT students – but it is a good poke at how people behave. Anyone who engages in politics or wants to understand how so many candidates, voters and elected officials (to say nothing of consumers, family members and neighbors) can make so many obviously foolish decisions will find the book and blog interesting.
