Predictably irrational
In Predictably irrational I take the basic metaphor of visual illusions, and suggest that it is a useful way to understand the way we reason about the world around us. In particular, I focus on “decision making illusions” that influence all of us in our daily life. From buying the middle sized cup of coffee because it is not too small and not too large, to the attachment we have to our previous decisions to the ways in which we justify our decisions to ourselves and to other people. My hope is that by understanding these “decision making illusions” we will both marvel about the ways in which we think and reason (as irrational as they might be), and also learn to protect ourselves from some of the mistakes that we so commonly make.
The (Honest) Truth about dishonesty
From corporate scandals, to politics, to fake news, the prevalence of dishonesty seems to be increasing all around us with larger and more serious consequences to our lives as individuals, collectively, and on societies as a whole. The main point of this book is that while our dishonesty is sometimes a result of cold calculated plans, it is more often the result of motivated reasoning and rationalizations. For example, we find that when we think that “everyone is doing it” we have an easier time being dishonest while at the same time thinking of ourselves as wonderful, honest people. The same applies when we think that “no one is really suffering,” “this is what is expected from me,” “they deserve it,” etc. These findings demonstrate that the causes of dishonesty are different than what we usually believe, and if we want to curb dishonesty, we have to first understand the complex origins of dishonest behavior.
The Upside of Irrationality
In this book I followed up on some of the same principles I explored in Predictably Irrational and expanded them to examine even more ways that our irrationalities influence our day to day lives—in both our personal and professional spheres as well as on society as a whole. Why the upside? Because our irrationalities are not always bad. The same mechanisms that make us irrational also make us fall in love, write poetry, and help strangers who we will never meet again. Whether it is favoring our own ideas (as bad as they may be), the mysterious forces that motivate us, the ways we adapt to both good and bad changes in our circumstances, our mistaken views about what makes us happy, or the particular ways that technologies fail us — for better or for worse, our irrationalities are what makes us human.
Dollars and Sense
This book tries to break down the ways that we think about money. Whether it is overspending on credit cards because the pain of paying while using small plastic cards doesn’t hit they way it does when we use cash, to the many ways that casinos make it easy for us to part with our money. From the way we misunderstand financial value to the ways we misunderstand the value of our time. From the forces that should increase how much we are willing to pay for something (but don’t) to the forces that shouldn’t increase how much we are willing to pay for something (but do). From saving our money to paying down debt to overpaying for something simply because it is on sale. This book attempts to help us understand the wonderful and complex nature of money.
Payoff
Payoff is a short book that starts with a very painful story where I realized the extent to which helplessness dominated my life and its consequences. The book then continues with more general questions about the nature of motivation. There is no question that understanding human motivation is important to anyone who manages a team or runs a company. Yet the forces that motivate people are not always clear and easy to understand. Payoff, ends with my attempt to describe some complex questions about the end of life and the importance of legacy as a window from which we can examine the forces that truly motivate us.
Irrationally yours
For several years I had the privilege of writing an advice column for the Wall Street Journal. I wrote my first column in June 2012 and I ended writing the column in late 2022. During those 10 years, I have fielded questions about a wide range of personal and social issues. It was always exciting for me to get a new question and reflect on what social science could say about it—not only in terms of supplying an answer, but even more, in terms of the perspective it could offer in thinking about the underlying concerns. This book is a compilation of some of these questions and a way to share our collective conundrums with the addition of some wonderful cartoons by William Haefeli.
Amazing Decisions
In Amazing Decisions I take the very important concepts of market norms and social norms (which I also discussed in Predictably Irrational) and expand on them, in terms of the theory, the findings, and their implications. And all of this in an illustrated novel format (no need to worry, the amazing Matt Trower, and not me, created the illustrations). Why are market norms and social norms such important concepts to understand? Because our lives include a complex mix of both of them and the results show that when we mix market norms and social norms, the results are often not as we expect. For example, our results show that giving financial bonus at work can result in lowered motivation overall, and in even lower motivation than simply saying thank you. But the implications of these concepts also has to do with topics ranging from what constitutes a good gift to the effectiveness of carbon trading and energy savings.
Misbelief
In the early days of the pandemic, I became a target of disinformation. Misbelief, is my attempt to understand the irrational appeal of disinformation and the behavior of “misbelief”—the psychological and social journey that leads people to mistrust accepted truths, entertain alternative facts, and even embrace full-blown conspiracy theories. Misinformation, it turns out, appeals to something innate in all of us—on the right and the left—and it is only by understanding this psychology that we can blunt its effects. I discuss the the key elements—emotional, cognitive, personality, and social—that drive people down the funnel of false information and mistrust, showing how under the right circumstances, anyone can become a misbeliever. I also try to offer hope by showing that awareness of the forces fueling misbelief make us, as individuals and as a society, more resilient to its allure. Combating misbelief requires a strategy rooted not in conflict, but in empathy. The sooner we recognize that misbelief is above all else a human problem, the sooner we can become the solution ourselves.