“Dan Ariely is a genius at understanding human behavior: no economist does a better job of uncovering and explaining the hidden reasons for the weird ways we act.” — James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds

Behavioral economist and New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely returns to offer a much-needed take on the irrational decisions that influence our dating lives, our workplace experiences, and our temptation to cheat in any and all areas. Fans of Freakonomics, Survival of the Sickest, and Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and The Tipping Point will find many thought-provoking insights in The Upside of Irrationality.

作者简介

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, and is the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and elsewhere. He lives in North Carolina with his family.

网友对Upside Of Irrationality Intl, The的评论

内容不错，值得一看。
书很小，方便随身携带！

我一直觉得这种偏学术型的书应该是不会适合我这种学习不好的。。。
但是整本书欢脱+自我吐槽的节奏真的让人看的好愉悦！
作者思路很清楚，各种实验也都非常带感，虽然不怎么有solution能给出来，但是明显能让自己更加了解自己，其实solution这种也都是因人而异的吧~
总之，很推荐！

非常有趣的一本书，爱不释手。。。

虽然说是一本心理学的书，但是书的英语句子一点都不难懂，很少有艰涩的专业词汇，而且研究的领域十分有趣，值得一看

I've often wondered why I can listen to a song only a certain number of times before I'm sick of it. If I like the song the first time I hear it, that only means that I'll get tired of it sooner. But the ones I begin to like around the sixth or seventh listen, the ones that grow on me, those are the best ones.

But my enjoyment if them still eventually wears thin and I have to find some new music. Now I know what that's called - hedonic adaptation. It's why we stop loving that new car as soon as the new car smell is gone, and why we get used to new jobs, relationships and whatnot. It also works in reverse - you can get used to negative experiences like incarceration (from my experience, I can tell you that it's nightmarish at first, but eventually you get used to it; it becomes bearable).

I once heard that a miserable person who wins the lottery will still be miserable a year later, and a happy person who becomes a paraplegic will still be happy a year later. In "The Upside of Irrationality" by Dan Ariely, I read that someone actually did perform a study on hedonic adaptation using lottery winners and paraplegics.

They found that both groups were close to normal levels of life satisfaction a year later, and that such life-altering events do have a huge impact on happiness at first, but the effect usually wears off over time.

So what do we do? Do we spend our lives on the "hedonic treadmill" chasing illusions of happiness? Do we even know what will truly make us happy? Is it a new car, a new house, a new job, a new lover? A new song?

Review Written by David Allan Reeves
Author of "Running Away From Me"

Of the three books by this author that I have read (the other two are on irrationality being predictable and on dishonesty), this is by far the most interesting, notwithstanding that its presentation is rather less organised in parts.

The first half of the book covers motivation and incentives at work. Description of experiments is vivid, often presented from the perspective of the subjects in the experiments (ie rats and humans). The findings indeed provide useful lessons for employers, supervisors, as well as government. It is also a joy to read.

The second half covers the author's personal reflection and observation, as well as experiments to look into a mishmash of issues, such as revenge, online dating, adaptation to change, etc. The discussion is still interesting and enlightening. However, there is a tendency to be too brief on the statistical outcome of experiments. For example, instead of stating the proportion of subjects who responded in a certain manner, the author strays into using 'most' or 'many' in describing such proportions. I suspect that some of the experiments were performed some time ago, and it may be too cumbersome for the author to look up the actual data of these dated experiments. As such, his discussion appears rather less convincing.

In all, the book provides important lessons on the psychology of decisions. It also gives a reflective account of the personal pain that the author has suffered since sustaining horrific injuries as a teenager. A touching and instructive book.

Based on the author's credentials, and past works, I had high hopes for this book. I came away exceedingly disappointed.

Behavioral Economics is a fascinating subject to me. Why do humans act the way they do, and why do they act in ways that often seem counter-intuitive or just plain wrong? I find the design of experiments to show these foibles to be fascinating and enjoyable reading.

But not this book. For starters, the writing style seemed bit long-winded and overly complicated. It always seemed like it took far more words to explain things than was actually needed.

My biggest complaint, though, was the stretch made in applying the results of the experiments. I am not a trained statistician or economist, but every time I read the results of one of the experiments and the conclusions generated, there seemed to be an obvious flaw.

For example, in one experiment, the author attempts to quantify the effects of large financial bonuses (the kinds paid to investment bankers) on their performance. As a substitute, he uses relatively poor paid workers (low wage earners in India), and offers them "bonuses" equal to several month's pay. He does this because several month's pay for these individuals is a relatively small amount of money (less that $100), so his research budget can afford it.

The problem is that while the relative sizes of the bonus might be similar, the effects they have on the wage earner can hardly be the same. If the investment banker misses his bonus, the net result might be a two day Disneyland vacation instead of two weeks in Europe--different, but hardly life changing. However, a few month's salary to an Indian wage earner, making subsistence wages, might be the difference between medical treatment versus no medical treatment for a sick child.

Obviously the motivations and consequences of these will be different. And yet the author makes no attempts to explain or control for these conditions while drawing conclusions about high wage earners based on subsistence wage earners.

A second example is a study quantifying the effects of employee motivation by an experiment performed on "workers" hired to assemble Lego toys for a dollar or so. But the type of person who signs up for an experiment to assemble Lego toys for an afternoon and a person holding a 9-5 job for years may be quite different. Again, no attempt to explain or control. But again, the author makes conclusions about the second group based on the first.

Every one of the studies I read seemed to have some flaw which was either not explained or not controlled for. After a while I stopped reading and just skimmed the last half of the book.

Very disappointed, and I would say skip this book.

The premise of Dan Ariely's psychology studies are based on irrational human behavior. The experiments he devises to gather information are brilliant and fascinating. He outlines each premise and set of experiments in an interesting manner so that the reader is fully drawn in. All the while, the reader is imagining how he would react. The method of telling the story is humorous and interesting, as well.
The only thing that holds this book back from 5 stars is that the author's approach leans a bit too far into the "thesis paper" realm and can be ever so slightly tedious with unnecessary repetition that is required for academic papers -- That is not to say that the book comes across stuffy and academic, but only that a few less repetitions of each thesis would make the read better.
As a side note, I suspect that this would be consumed better as an audio book.

I haven't read Predictably Irrational, so can't say how this book compares to that, but I am familiar with Dan Ariely's work and have watched his videocasts and such. I enjoy his topics and way of presentation.

This is a great book. Very well written, simple, in a conversational style (just like how he talked in the videos). Each chapter starts with an anecdote, then talks about theories and experiments, and usually contains more anecdotes from his/ colleagues/ friends' personal lives. Over all you get a pleasant feeling reading this stuff - nothing dry and boring about it - and it all makes sense and is logically explained. If you enjoy reading about behaviour and people, this is a good choice.

I liked the first part of the book better than the second part. Maybe that's because part 1 was about companies and interactions with others and that's an area I like better.

If you are after a book thats to the point and doesn't waste time, this is not for you. Like I said, the author goes on with anecdotes and personal experiences and so you got to be in a mindframe to enjoy these too. I enjoyed all that, plus all the experiements and their result and his discussion on them, so it's all 5 stars for me!

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