Everyone thinks they're different than everyone else, but are they really? This book sheds light on some of inobvious patterns that we all seem to follow in our daily routines. Some of these patterns are good, most are ridiculous, some are even dangerous, and all can be taking advantage of as opportunities to improve our lives. ( )

As Freakonomics this book is conceived to appeal to the great public: anyway it's a lor better than Levitt's, well written and complete.

The main message is that traditional economics suffers a huge misunderstanding of human nature: in fact it assumes that men are rational agents, acting on the behalf of a cost/benefit analysis whenever they decide.

This is far from reality.

Humans are irrational. Most of the time our decision making is influenced from a huge number of factors (e.g. the context for a comparation, our former experiences, our expectations, and so on).

It may seem a bit depressing, but consider this: being our irrationality a very systematic and predictable flaw, we may take steps in order to prevent ourselves from make bad decisions, and -more important- shape our policy and law-making to this state of things. ( )

I discovered this one via the Economist’s More Intelligent Life blog. The book provides a good look at the ways in which human beings reliably deviate from the world of logic and game theory. It’s a quick read, very accessible, and full of examples from the author’s own research. The expanded edition also gives Ariely’s view of the flawed thinking that facilitated the economic meltdown. ( )

A fun book which gives a good look at the "other" side of economics. Rather than looking at people as rational actors who always maximize their utility, behavioral economics tries to find out what makes people behave the way they actually do. Ariely and his friends seem to have an oddball experiment to test just about everything. How many economists give away beer in Chapel Hill to see how one person's order affects another's? (It turns out that in America, people will choose their beer to be different from other people at their table, even if the beer is one the person likes less. Good ol' American individualism in action!) Ariely then tries to take each principle he uncovers and apply it to how we should act and govern. In the beer example, he says that you should decide your order before you hear what everyone else wants to order. It is in these conclusions that the book is a bit weak. The book, however, is well worth reading as at least one of the chapters is likely to trigger something in how you live or view others. ( )