Humans are predictably irrational. There are many cases, many situations, and many types of emotion that will interfere with our decisions in life.

A certain mood could differ our way of thinking. A strictly monogamous man? Try come back to it when you’re on the heat.

Or how about that magic word, “FREE”, that would send you thinking again and again and again about whether that “Buy 1 Smartphone Get 1 Free Smartphone” offer from your nearest electronic store is worth the money or not.

This is probably how your thinking progress goes:

Okay, who needs 2 smartphones? Me, because my Mom did. I could buy one and she could get one too, how perfect is that? But I don’t need a new smartphone, don’t I? But hey, I might need it tomorrow, my smartphone will break someday, It’s good to have a substitute, right? Besides, when will I get this amazing chance again?

Wait, how much a smartphone cost nowadays?

Now, just how strong are you, in the face of that tempting FREE advertising?

Dan Ariely, the author, being so curious as he is, held many study cases through his years as the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University. His experiments circled around how human acts in front of many offers and obstacles, such as: how they make decisions in the condition of social and working norms, how human always strives for more options, and many more.

Through this book also, we could see that human is predictably irrational, but the cure to the ‘irrationality disease’, however, is still fairly unpredictable. But a simple tweak could help us manage and control our irrational behaviors, and that’s the value that Dan added to the book.

I think that’s the best thing about this book, it doesn’t just argue and show facts, but also give us simple tips that we could try in our everyday lives.

The book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely is recommended for everyone who’s interested in learning more about behavioral economics. I also find the cases and tips included in the book are really good for anyone who works in marketing. There are a lot of things related to the marketing strategy that I’ve might think about all this time, but I can’t really pinpoint what and why, and then I read this book, and Dan confirms and answers my every doubts and instinct.

Happy reading!

Amanda.