Predictably Irrational Quotes

“predictably”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Let me start with a fundamental observation: most people don't know what they want unless they see it in context.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. We don't have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate value accordingly.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Zero has had a long history. The Babylonians invented the concept of zero; the ancient Greeks debated it in lofty terms (how could something be nothing?); the ancient Indian scholar Pingala paired Zero with the numeral 1 to get double digits; and both the Mayans and the Romans made Zero a part of their numeral systems. But Zero finally found its place around AD 498, when the Indian astronomer Aryabhatta sat up in bed one morning and exclaimed, "Sthanam sthanam dasa gunam" — which translates, roughly as, "place to place in ten times in value". With that, the idea of decimal based place value notion was born. Now Zero was on a roll: It spread to the Arab world, where it flourished; crossed the Iberian Peninsula to Europe (thanks to the Spanish Moors); got some tweaking from the Italians; and eventually sailed the Atlantic to the New World, where zero ultimately found plenty of employment (together with the digit 1) in a place called Silicon Valley.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Understand that relativity is everywhere, and that we view everything through its lens - rose-colored or otherwise. When you meet someone in a different country or city and it seems that you have magical connection, realize that the enchantment might be limited to the surrounding circumstances.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“If we start to think about trust as a public good (like clean air and water), we see that we can all benefit from higher levels of trust in terms of communicating with others, making financial transitions smoother, simplifying contracts, and many other business and social activities. Without constant suspicion, we can get more out of our exchanges with others while spending less time making sure that others will fulfill their promises to us. Yet as the tragedy of commons exemplifies, in the short term it is beneficial for each individual to violate and take advantage of the established trust.

I suspect that most people and companies miss or ignore the fact that trust is an important public resource and that losing it can have long-term negative consequences for everyone involved. It doesn't take much to violate trust. Just a few bad players in the market can spoil it for everyone else.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“One of my colleagues in Duke, Ralph Keeney, noted that America's top killer isn't cancer or heart disease, nor is it smoking or obesity. It's our inability to make smart choices and overcome our own self-destructive behaviours. Ralph estimates that about half of us will make a lifestyle decision that will ultimately lead us to an early grave. And as if this were not bad enough, it seems that the rate at which we make these deadly decisions is increasing at an alarming pace.

I suspect that over the next few decades, real improvements in life expectancy and quality are less likely to be driven by medical technology than by improved decision making. Since focusing on long-term benefits is not our natural tendency, we need to more carefully examine the cases in which we repeatedly fail, and try to come up with some remedies for these situations. For an overweight movie loved, the key might be to enjoy watching a film while walking on the treadmill. The trick is to find the right behavioural antidote for each problem. By pairing something that we love with something that we dislike but that is good for us, we might be able to harness desire with outcome - and thus overcome some of the problems with self-control we face every day.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“In a modern democracy, he said, people are beset not by a lack of opportunity, but by a dizzying abundance of it. In our modern society this is emphatically so. We are continually reminded that we can do anything and be anything we want to be. The problem is in living up to this dream. We must develop ourselves in every way possible; must taste every aspect of life; must make sure that of the 1,000 things to see before dying, we have not stopped at number 999. But then comes a problem—are we spreading ourselves too thin?”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“WHAT IS IT about FREE! that's so enticing? Why do we have an irrational urge to jump for a FREE! item, even when it's not what we really want?”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“we not only tend to compare things with one another but also tend to focus on comparing things that are easily comparable—and avoid comparing things that cannot be compared easily.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“we are always looking at the things around us in relation to others.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“But, as the results presented in this book (and others) show, we are all far less rational in our decision making than standard economic theory assumes. Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless-they are systematic and predictable. We all make the same types of mistakes over and over, because of the basic wiring of our brains. So wouldn't it make sense to modify standard economics and move away from naive psychology, which often fails the tests of reason, introspection, and-most important-empirical scrutiny?

Wouldn't economics make a lot more sense if it were based on how people actually behave, instead of how they should behave? As I said in the Introduction, that simple idea is the basis of behavioral economics, an emerging field focused on the (quite intrusive) idea that people do not always behave rationally and that they often make mistakes in their decisions.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“How can we unshackle ourselves from this irrational impulse to chase worthless options? In 1941 the philosopher Erich Fromm wrote a book called Escape from Freedom. In a modern democracy, he said, people are beset not by a lack of opportunity, but by a dizzying abundance of it. In our modern society this is emphatically so. We are continually reminded that we can do anything and be anything we want to be. The problem is in living up to this dream. We must develop ourselves in every way possible; must taste every aspect of life; must make sure that of the 1,000 things to see before dying, we have not stopped at number 999. But then comes a problem-are we spreading ourselves too thin? The temptation Fromm was describing, I believe, is what we saw as we watched our participants racing from one door to another.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“If corporations started thinking in terms of social norms, they would realize that these norms build loyalty and-more important-make people want to extend themselves to the degree that corporations need today: to be flexible, concerned, and willing to pitch in. That's what a social relationship delivers.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“If companies want to benefit from the advantages of social norms, they need to do a better job of cultivating those norms. Medical benefits, and in particular comprehensive medical coverage, are among the best ways a company can express its side of the social exchange. But what are many companies doing? They are demanding high deductibles in their insurance plans, and at the same time are reducing the scope of benefits. Simply put, they are undermining the social contract between the company and the employees and replacing it with market norms. As companies tilt the board, and employees slide from social norms to the realm of market norms, can we blame them for jumping ship when a better offer appears? It's really no surprise that "corporate loyalty," in terms of the loyalty of employees to their companies, has become an oxymoron.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“So we live in two worlds: one characterized by social exchanges and the other characterized by market exchanges. And we apply different norms to these two kinds of relationships. Moreover, introducing market norms into social exchanges, as we have seen, violates the social norms into social exchanges, as we have seen, violates the social norms and hurts the relationships. Once this type of mistake has been committed, recovering a social relationship is difficult. Once you've offered to pay for the delightful Thanksgiving dinner, your mother-in-law will remember the incident for years to come. And if you've ever offered a potential romantic partner the chance to cut to the chase, split the cost of the courting process, and simply go to bed, the odds are that you will have wrecked the romance forever.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“a man's satisfaction with his salary depends on (are you ready for this?) whether he makes more than his wife's sister's husband. Why the wife's sister's husband? Because (and I have a feeling that Mencken's wife kept him fully informed of her sister's husband's salary) this is a comparison that is salient and readily available.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“If you want a social relationship, go for it, but remember that you have to maintain it under all circumstances.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Could it be that we made arbitrary decisions at some point in the past (like the goslings that adopted Lorenz as their parent) and have built our lives on them ever since, assuming that the original decisions were wise?”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“humans rarely choose things in absolute terms. We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate value accordingly. (For instance, we don’t know how much a six-cylinder car is worth, but we can assume it’s more expensive than the four-cylinder model.)”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“question to ask them. I asked half the students to write down whether, hypothetically, they would be willing to pay me $10 for a 10-minute poetry recitation. I asked the other half to write down whether, hypothetically, they would be willing to listen to me recite poetry for ten minutes if I paid them $10.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“the girls had on enough makeup to make Elizabeth Taylor look unadorned”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“It seems then that instead of consumers' willingness to pay influencing market prices, the causality is somewhat reversed and it is market prices themselves that influence consumers' willingness to pay.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“obfuscate”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“What if the doctor asked you if you would like to pay this $100 deposit for the test? Would you accept this self-imposed challenge? And if you did, would it make you more likely to show up for the procedure? Suppose the procedure was more complicated: a colonoscopy, for instance. Would you be willing to commit to a $200 deposit, refundable only if you arrived at the appointment on time?”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“simply offering the students a tool by which they could precommit to deadlines helped them achieve better grades.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“even half a century after Kinsey, and despite its substantial importance, sex is still largely a taboo subject for a study—at least at some institutions.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Do I realize that it is a mistake to go to a museum when it is free? You bet I do—but I go nevertheless.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“When you meet someone in a different country or city and it seems that you have a magical connection, realize that the enchantment might be limited to the surrounding circumstances.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“when you get a Boxster you wish you had a 911, and you know what people who have 911s wish they had? They wish they had a Ferrari.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions