Predictably irrational : the hidden forces that shape our decisions

Overall, this is a useful book. There's quite a bit of overlap conceptually with David Graeber's "Debt" and Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow," but this one predates them by 3 years.

Social vs market norms. Similar to David Graeber's book about Debt. Social norms shouldn't be translated into market norms, or you destroy them. This book uses them to explain relationship costs in a useful way. Men paying for dinner on a date, if complaining that he always has to pay, converts it into a market norm. This therefore turns the possible sexual relationship from social to market, implying the date can be bought, which is a social insult. I think this is why so many people on the autism spectrum sound like incels: they view social norms in relationships as a financial exchange and therefore women as manipulators of value.

This construct of Ideas of "free/gift" crossing market and social norms in weird but predictable ways is a useful analytical tool. It's easy once you get going to classify every interaction in one of these 2 categories, and consider what would happen if it crossed into the other norm. Much more fruitful than Graeber's formulation.

 People are willing to work for free, and they're willing to work for money, but if you offer them a small amount of money, they'll walk away.
Telling someone how much a gift costs puts it back into the market mode, and could be perceived as tasteless or offensive.

One of the other great ideas he has is bundling healthcare tests and common procedures like immunizations into regular, predictably priced service events, like with an auto dealership. However, if higher prices for drugs and healthcare are as positively correlated with satisfaction and pain relief as he says, then the US healthcare system must be the most satisfying one in the world. Since it is clearly not, this placebo effect is overstated.

After reading this, I feel like I need to carry around a check list of irrationalities to remember every day.

Some takeaways:
- We react more morally using social norms rather than market norms, but once market norms take over it's difficult to switch back to social ones. If you're planning to switch from a tip jar to a price, be careful if you might ever switch back.
- We are much more willing to steal when the thing we are stealing isn't cold hard cash. Beware of hidden costs and hidden theft.
- Watch out when comparing relative costs. We'll drive across the street to save $10 on something that's cheap but not on something that's expensive.
- Free is much more powerful than cheap. Stop coveting free things.
- Owners value their goods much more than buyers.
- Options distract us from actually getting anything done.
- We cheat less when reminded of a moral benchmark.
- When other people order food before us, we will change our order to something different and will be less happy with our order overall.

Behavioral economics is a field that interests me deeply. For some reason, I'm drawn in whenever someone gathers data about not only what we do (rather than what we think we do), but why we do it.

When those things come together, it provides a model for understanding my own behavior and, when necessary, modifying it. This book hits one right up the middle in that way, as does the author's site.

He examines some of the behaviors we all exhibit that don't mesh with what a purely rational/logical behavior would be in the same situation. For instance, we nearly all have a completely irrational desire to avoid closing off options. We'll go to absurd lengths to keep our options open, even when 1-2 of those options are demonstrably better in every way.

That's an impulse I feel regularly that has bothered me. After reading this book, there's a lot of those kinds of things I see myself doing that bother me. Fortunately, now that I recognize them, I can actually stop and adjust my behavior. On the flip side, I also now understand other people's behavior a little better as well. That can help when you're working with others and need a better model in your head for how they're going to act in day-to-day situations.

Overall, definitely an eye-opening book and approach.