Predictably Irrational
Ariely's experiments demonstrate that human irrationality is not random but systematic and predictable. Anchoring, the endowment effect, the decoy effect, and the distortion of social norms all warp economic decisions in consistent, exploitable ways. The key insight: because irrationality is predictable, it can be anticipated — and that's an edge.
Behavioral economics took the replication crisis on the chin, and this book absorbed several blows: the anchoring experiments and the priming-flavored findings have wobbled or shrunk under rerun. Worse, a dataset behind Ariely's later honesty research was shown to be fabricated, which retroactively sours the book's trust-me-I-ran-a-study voice. Read it as provocation, not settled science.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
