Predictably Irrational Quotes

“BUT THE STORY doesn’t end there. Now that you have gotten used to paying more for coffee, and have bumped yourself up onto a new curve of consumption, other changes also become simpler. Perhaps you will now move up from the small cup for $2.20 to the medium size for $3.50 or to the Venti for $4.15. Even though you don’t know how you got into this price bracket in the first place, moving to a larger coffee at a relatively greater price seems pretty logical. So is a lateral move to other offerings at Starbucks: Caffè Americano, Caffè Misto, Macchiato, and Frappuccino, for instance. If you stopped to think about this, it would not be clear whether you should be spending all this money on coffee at Starbucks instead of getting cheaper coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts or even free coffee at the office. But you don’t think about these trade-offs anymore. You’ve already made this decision many times in the past, so you now assume that this is the way you want to spend your money. You’ve herded yourself—lining up behind your initial experience at Starbucks—and now you’re part of the crowd.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“But there’s also another kind of herding, one that we call self-herding. This happens when we believe something is good (or bad) on the basis of our own previous behavior. Essentially, once we become the first person in line at the restaurant, we begin to line up behind ourself in subsequent experiences. Does that make sense? Let me explain. Recall your first introduction to Starbucks, perhaps several years ago. (I assume that nearly everyone has had this experience, since Starbucks sits on every corner in America.) You are sleepy and in desperate need of a liquid energy boost as you embark on an errand one afternoon. You glance through the windows at Starbucks and walk in. The prices of the coffee are a shock—you’ve been blissfully drinking the brew at Dunkin’ Donuts for years. But since you have walked in and are now curious about what coffee at this price might taste like, you surprise yourself: you buy a small coffee, enjoy its taste and its effect on you, and walk out. The following week you walk by Starbucks again. Should you go in? The ideal decision-making process should take into account the quality of the coffee (Starbucks versus Dunkin’ Donuts); the prices at the two places; and, of course, the cost (or value) of walking a few more blocks to get to Dunkin’ Donuts. This is a complex computation—so instead, you resort to the simple approach: “I went to Starbucks before, and I enjoyed myself and the coffee, so this must be a good decision for me.” So you walk in and get another small cup of coffee.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“NOW THAT WE know we behave like goslings, it is important to understand the process by which our first decisions translate into long-term habits. To illustrate this process, consider this example. You’re walking past a restaurant, and you see two people standing in line, waiting to get in. “This must be a good restaurant,” you think to yourself. “People are standing in line.” So you stand behind these people. Another person walks by. He sees three people standing in line and thinks, “This must be a fantastic restaurant,” and joins the line. Others join. We call this type of behavior herding. It happens when we assume that something is good (or bad) on the basis of other people’s previous behavior, and our own actions follow suit.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“What was the point of all this? We wanted to find out whether the first prices that we suggested (10 cents and 90 cents) had served as an anchor. And indeed they had. Those who first faced the hypothetical decision about whether to listen to the sound for 10 cents needed much less money to be willing to listen to this sound again (33 cents on average) relative to those who first faced the hypothetical decision about whether to listen to the sound for 90 cents—this second group demanded more than twice the compensation (73 cents on average) for the same annoying experience. Do you see the difference that the suggested price had?”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Or, as Mark Twain once noted about Tom Sawyer, “Tom had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“An ironic aspect of this story is that in 1993, federal securities regulators forced companies, for the first time, to reveal details about the pay and perks of their top executives. The idea was that once pay was in the open, boards would be reluctant to give executives outrageous salaries and benefits. This, it was hoped, would stop the rise in executive compensation, which neither regulation, legislation, nor shareholder pressure had been able to stop. And indeed, it needed to stop: in 1976 the average CEO was paid 36 times as much as the average worker. By 1993, the average CEO was paid 131 times as much. But guess what happened. Once salaries became public information, the media regularly ran special stories ranking CEOs by pay. Rather than suppressing the executive perks, the publicity had CEOs in America comparing their pay with that of everyone else. In response, executives’ salaries skyrocketed.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“But how could they manipulate me? I suspect it’s because the Economist’s marketing wizards (and I could just picture them in their school ties and blazers) knew something important about human behavior: 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

“Now, the print-only option may have been a typographical error, but I suspect that the clever people at the Economist’s London offices (and they are clever—and quite mischievous in a British sort of way)”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“«Tom había descubierto una gran ley de la acción humana, a saber, que para hacer que un hombre codicie algo, basta con hacer que resulte difícil de obtener».”
― Dan Ariely, Las trampas del deseo: Cómo controlar los impulsos irracionales que nos llevan al error

“The third quirk is that we assume other people will see the transaction from the same perspective as we do. We somehow expect the buyer of our VW to share our feelings, emotions, and memories.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“poorerthanyou.com and “We're in Debt” wereindebt.com to “Make Love Not Debt” makelovenotdebt.com and Tricia's Web page: blogginga-waydebt.com). Leland noted, “Consumers are asking others to help themselves develop self-control because so many companies are not showing any restraint.”6”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“THE CONCEPT OF zero also applies to time. Time spent on one activity, after all, is time taken away from another. So if we spend 45 minutes in a line waiting for our turn to get a FREE! taste of ice cream, or if we spend half an hour filling out a long form for a tiny rebate, there is something else that we are not doing with our time.”
― 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? I believe the answer is this. Most transactions have an upside and a downside, but when something is FREE! we forget the downside, FREE! gives us such an emotional charge that we perceive what is being offered as immensely more valuable than it really is. Why? I think it's because humans are intrinsically afraid of loss. The real allure of FREE! is tied to this fear. There's no visible possibility of loss when we choose a FREE! item (it's free). But suppose we choose the item that's not free. Uh-oh, now there's a risk of having made a poor decision—the possibility of a loss. And so, given the choice, we go for what is free.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line in the summer because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign.”*”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“I don't want to live the life of a Boxster,” he told the New York Times, “because 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.” That's a lesson we can all learn: the more we have, the more we want. And the only cure is to break the cycle of relativity.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“people will work more for a cause than for cash.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“The point is that while gifts are financially inefficient, they are an important social lubricant. They help us make friends and create long-term relationships that can sustain us through the ups and downs of life. Sometimes, it turns out, a waste of money can be worth a lot.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Yes, a free market based on supply, demand, and no friction would be the ideal if we were truly rational. Yet when we are not rational but irrational, policies should take this important factor into account.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“when social norms collide with market norms, the social norms go away and the market norms stay.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“once tempted to cheat, the participants didn't seem to be as influenced by the risk of being caught as one might think. When the students were given the opportunity to cheat without being able to shred their papers, they increased their correct answers from 32.6 to 36.2. But”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“What did we learn from this experiment? The first conclusion, is that when given the opportunity, many honest people will cheat.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“A second experiment tested the same general idea by priming the concept of the elderly, using words such as Florida, bingo, and ancient. After the participants in this experiment completed the scrambled-sentence task, they left the room, thinking that they had finished the experiment—but in fact the crux of the study was just beginning. What truly interested the researchers was how long it would take the participants to walk down the hallway as they left the building. Sure enough, the participants in the experimental group were affected by the “elderly” words: their walking speed was considerably slower than that of a control group who had not been primed.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“even our own behavior can be influenced by our stereotypes, and that activation of stereotypes can depend on our current state of mind and how we view ourselves at the moment.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“But because a stereotype provides us with specific expectations about members of a group, it can also unfavorably influence both our perceptions and our behavior.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“A stereotype, after all, is a way of categorizing information, in the hope of predicting experiences. The brain cannot start from scratch at every new situation.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“In behavioral economics we use a different instrument, however, one that allows us to slow down human behavior and examine it frame by frame, as it unfolds. As you have undoubtedly guessed by now, this procedure is called an experiment.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Starbucks did everything in its power, in other words, to make the experience feel different—so different that we would not use the prices at Dunkin' Donuts as an anchor, but instead would be open to the new anchor that Starbucks was preparing for us. And that, to a great extent, is how Starbucks succeeded.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“You're walking past a restaurant, and you see two people standing in line, waiting to get in. “This must be a good restaurant,” you think to yourself. “People are standing in line.” So you stand behind these people. Another person walks by. He sees three people standing in line and thinks, “This must be a fantastic restaurant,” and joins the line. Others join. We call this type of behavior herding. It happens when we assume that something is good (or bad) on the basis of other people's previous behavior, and our own actions follow suit.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Sigmund Freud explained it this way. He said that as we grow up in society, we internalize the social virtues. This internalization leads to the development of the superego. In general, the superego is pleased when we comply with society’s ethics, and unhappy when we don’t.”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

“Descartes said, Cogito ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.” But suppose we are nothing more than the sum of our first, naive, random behaviors. What then?”
― Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions